


yours to love, yours to hate

by sorrybabyxx



Series: Y2LY2H [1]
Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Post Season 2, Season 3, Villaneve, and Eve that AWAKENING, and all the theories in my brain post season 2, putting in the work for give V the fam she deserves, slow burn on simmer, this is mainly to help me survive the hiatus, trying to stick to the vibe and canon of the show
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:55:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 94,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21733345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrybabyxx/pseuds/sorrybabyxx
Summary: An alternative take on S3 where Villanelle never believes Eve is dead. Begins hours after S2 finale.Eve wakes up in a hospital bed in Rome trying to piece everything back together. Meanwhile, Villanelle is doing her best to forget everything, to forget Eve. Villanelle returns to Russia to find her family. As Eve hunts a new assassin who is just as obsessed with Villanelle and Eve as they are with each other. The murder of Raymond has linked their fates more than ever before. With The Twelve seeking vengeance and Carolyn seeking answers, Villanelle and Eve are incapable of escaping one another.
Relationships: Elena Felton/Kenny Stowton, Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Series: Y2LY2H [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915336
Comments: 108
Kudos: 360





	1. Sisyphean

**Author's Note:**

> I have a plot planned out and I am gonna try and post weekly, so if you like it stick around.
> 
> Villanelle's scene is totally based off that deleted scene with the cowboy hat.

**EVE – ROME**

The sunset burst through the blinds like an explosion. The thick clouds looked like its great plumes of smoke. It felt like one too, shrivelling Eve’s retinas. She slammed her freshly opened eyes shut, and it all came back to her.

Dazed, Eve took in the plain hospital room. It was small, just a bed and television. Thankfully, she had no roommates. Curtains covered the windows, that looked into the rest of the hospital, she could hear the distant thrum of life, people busying themselves.

Her fingers twitched towards her stomach, to check that she was whole. She encountered the slippery plastic of the medical-grade Band-Aid, that covered her left side. Peeling aside her hospital gown, she unveiled a canvas of pain, the gauze coloured by her clotted blood. It edges brown and yellowed; at its centre was the red heart of her wound, a crimson so rich it looked black.

She traced the bloody pattern, she needed proof it was real. The area was numb, but she could feel the knots of her stitches and could see where iodine had yellowed the exposed skin of her belly. She couldn't recall being in surgery.

Eve pressed down on the wound's centre like it was a big red button, harder and harder until some pain leaked through the filter of her medication. She took the shard of pain that beat through her side as confirmation. It was real, all of it.

Eve shrank back from herself. She was a murderer.

Eve slumped against the throne of plastic-lined pillows and closed her eyes. They crackled and settled around her, joining the insistent beeping that tracked her heart rate. She suspected all the drugs she was on, were the only thing holding her back from hyperventilating and fully realising the shit storm she was in the eye of. She didn’t feel giddy or happy, she felt spacey and distant. She was watching someone else in her place, in her body. And they were an idiot.

'Beautiful sunset isn’t it.’ It was Carolyn’s voice.

Eve didn't open her eyes and reassessed, maybe she was dead. Yeah, this hospital bed was probably purgatory and Carolyn, a demon come to torture her for her sins.

The voice continued, along with the slow stride of sensible flat shoes. ‘Can you imagine what it must look like from amongst the clouds? I was about to get on a plane when I was informed an MI6 agent had turned up shot in restricted ancient ruins. She couldn’t have let you bleed out somewhere a little less dramatic?’

Eve peered out at the demon with one eye, and asked, ‘Am I dead?’

A very real Carolyn was sitting beside Eve’s bed, her face oddly animated in disapproval and impatience. ‘That would have probably been easier for me to clean up.’

Why was she back? Carolyn was impossible to read. Eve only had her theories and none of them spelt out good news. Carolyn must be back to finish the job or lock Eve up for killing Raymond. That would work nicely for Carolyn, gagging and discrediting Eve. She doubted that Carolyn had ever considered her and Villanelle would survive.

‘Why are you here?’ Eve asked.

‘This all doesn’t look very good, Eve. An agent going rogue, getting caught in the crosshairs of Aaron Peel and The Twelve.’ Eve scoffed, _you mean being betrayed and hung out to dry by your boss._ Carolyn didn’t falter, 'Somehow, despite everything, I can’t help but think there is more to get out of you yet.’

It wasn’t handcuffs, but Eve didn’t appreciate the sentiment. It reminded her of their conversation back at the hotel, _‘It’s my job to get the best out of people. Vill_ _anelle simply did what Villanelle does best.’_

What was it that Eve did best? What did Caroyln want?

Eve saw herself on a chessboard, of chequered black and white. A pawn.

Eve’s pride got the better of her, she pulled herself upright, from slouched to seated. The action made her head spin and her aware, for the first time, she had two wounds. The internal and externals sets of stitches protested her movement as they fought to hold her together. So, when her fearsome words spilled out of her lips, they were breathy and weak, 'You played me.’

‘I did. But don’t sell yourself short, you figured out who killed Alistair Peel, found the Ghost, you even unknowingly accomplished your mission with Aaron. Villanelle has always been a blind spot for you,’ she shrugged waving a dismissive hand, ‘One, I accounted for. We can simply forget all this happened.’

‘You put blood on my hands,’ Eve said through gritted teeth.

‘Hardly. Besides Aaron Peel’s blood won't stain. His hands were filthy.’

‘You heard the recordings?’ Eve could swear she heard her heart rate spiked on the monitor. The knowledge was like a bucket of ice water. Her mind raced through that night with Villanelle’s voice in her ear and Eve running to save her without a thought.

Carolyn turned knowing eyes on Eve. ‘Yes. Before we destroyed them.’

Of course, Carolyn had heard them, but those moments they felt so infinite and theirs. Carolyn’s knowledge felt violating. Everything that had happened, everything with Villanelle, was something so raw and overpowering that Eve couldn’t even put it into words and it had been laid at Carolyn’s feet. All of Eve’s shame and Villanelle centred weakness.

‘Aaron offered her quite the deal. Yet, she turned it down for you. I have to say, I didn’t account for the loyalty between you both, it is touching. It does beg the question of how you ended up here?’ She gestured to Eve in all her prone glory. Carolyn paused for a beat but didn’t expect an answer. ‘Did you or Villanelle come across a Raymond at all?’

This was the moment. How honest should she be? Right now, she didn’t trust Carolyn. Not an inch, but Eve knew she had to protect herself.

‘Villanelle mentioned him. She thought he would come after us,' Eve offered, testing the waters.

‘And did he?’ Carolyn pressed.

‘He followed us back to the hotel, tried to attack us,’ Carolyn remained silent and Eve kept going, ‘Villanelle killed him.’

Carolyn leaned back, her pursed lips breaking her cool mask. That was something Carolyn hadn’t known. Eve gritted her teeth. But it did tell Eve MI6 wasn’t in the possession of a cleaved body and an axe with her fingerprints all over it. The Twelve must have cleaned up his body. Eve wasn’t sure how much that played in her favour. But for now, it could work.

Carolyn sat in quiet contemplation like she had just watched a player check her king.

Eve wasn’t sure what use she had to Carolyn. Raymond being dead closed another loop in Carolyn’s scheme, there was no one to tell The Twelve Villanelle was working for M16. Then it struck her. If Carolyn was aware of Raymond, she could have questioned him, arrested him, anything. Unless she had another use for him. Unless she had hoped by leaving him on the board, he would take Villanelle out, while she skipped back to London with Eve obliviously in tow.

Eve bristled. Carolyn had left Eve knowing she might perish in the crosshairs. And here Carolyn was to pull Eve back into the dark shadow of her wing as if nothing had happened.

Eve took the smallest grain of pleasure in having ruined Carolyn's plan, despite the means through which she achieved it.

Carolyn cleared her throat, having processed this new information. ‘Never matter. Surely, you are ready to give that all up. It seems like she’s over you. Do you want your life back, Eve? Or I should start brainstorming. I hear Canada is lovely.’

It was the same thinly veiled threat Carolyn had laid out for her in the morgue over Alistair Peel’s body. The same trap. This time Eve could feel the hooks that were caught in her skin, that connected to the strings Carolyn had been pulling all along. They threatened to break through the surface of her skin as she considered her options. She knew she had none.

 _Sisyphean_ , Eve thought.

‘Do I have a choice?’ Eve retorted.

Carolyn smiled, knowing that she had won. 

‘Right, I’ll reach out when you are back in London. We can go from there.’ Satisfied, Carolyn got to her feet, sweeping out of the room. She backtracked, peering her head in, ‘Oh, Hugo is alive by the way.’

Eve had forgotten about Hugo, again.

**VILLANELLE – ROME**

It really hadn’t gone to plan.

Villanelle could remember the fire of her anger burning her as she lifted the gun. As she watched Eve leave down the barrel of it, she knew she couldn’t kill her.

Even then.

Even as she _felt_ all of it. Eve’s rejection and her subsequent denial of everything between them. Her denying Villanelle’s love, both its existence and its embrace.

In exchange for what? So, she could go home? A place Eve had left so many times to find Villanelle.

If that’s what Eve wanted, to go home, to have her boring life back, marred as it was by everything that had passed between them. Villanelle would oblige, but not without a parting gift. A perfectly placed shot. A wound to echo the sweet pain of Eve burying a knife into Villanelle’s flesh.

Eve didn’t get to just walk away. Villanelle did.

The image of Eve's thick hair floating on her clotting blood plagued her. Villanelle called an ambulance, regardless of her marksmanship. She had to be sure, though she recoiled from the fact, from any hold Eve still had over her. She did her best to obscure her voice on the phone, not that she planned on sticking around in Rome.

 _Gunshots_ , she had said, _inside the ruins_.

That was the last thing she felt, a whisper of worry as she punched in the emergency phone number.

She was empty. But this time she could feel it. Its hollow churning. It was painful and stood in stark contrast to how she had felt hours before, with her hand on Eve’s waist. The warmth of Eve’s body radiated through her, sinking into her. She'd felt at peace. Warm and happy.

Now, she was as cold as the metal of that trigger. Her finger spasmed on the side of her drink, disturbing the dewy surface of the glass.

They could’ve had everything.

She wasn’t going to think about it, think about her, that was one of the perks of being her, she didn’t have to feel. She wasn’t a victim to the chemicals swirling in her brain.

She finished her drink. It was stiff. Ice and whiskey. Villanelle hoped the alcohol would still the emptiness, keep it from thrashing.

Villanelle was the dark and still heart of the lively bar. It was high end, dimly lit except for bursts of neon and flashes of colour from an invisible lighting system. The environment encouraged a civilised rowdiness, somewhere between a club and cocktail party.

Lifting a hand, she waved the waitstaff over. In a distracted flurry, he came and placed a glass in front of Villanelle without her ordering. It was a copy of her previous drink.

‘From the lady,’ he said once he registered her confusion. He gestured aloofly to their left before returning to the rush of the bar.

Villanelle turned, vaguely curious, peering out from under the brim of her black hat. A woman was watching her, awaiting her gaze.

The woman was petite, with a shock of black curly hair, from out the corner of Villanelle’s eye, she could have sworn it was Eve. Her brain was quick to amend the mistake, flashing the image of Eve in a spreading pool of blood. And Villanelle’s eyes saw the truth of this woman, in silhouette only could she pass as Eve. Upon closer inspection, she was in her late thirties, plain, entirely unremarkable. She was pretty, yes, but what did that matter? In a glance Villanelle, spotted the desperation in her eyes and knew she could have her, and she didn’t want her.

Feeling the woman’s eyes bore into her, demanding attention, Villanelle gathered a weak, yet, polite smile and tipped her drink in acknowledgement.

It didn’t take the woman long to wander over. The clacking of her heels announced her approach.

 _‘Lonely?’_ she asked in Italian, her voice was sweet, she had to raise it over the noise of the bar.

 _‘No, I don’t mind my own company.’_ Villanelle flashed another polite smile.

 _‘You’re not from here,’_ she observed, tipping her breast towards Villanelle as she leant into the table. They were displayed by the vicious slit down the centre of her dress. _‘Don’t get me wrong your Italian is good, but you look lost. What brought you to Rome?’_

 _‘Funeral,’_ Villanelle replied simply.

A bad move, the lady pulled up a stool and leant in to get the optimum angle of Villanelle’s face as she tried to obscure it with her wide brim.

 _‘You poor thing,'_ she said, her hand falling on Villanelle’s leg.

Villanelle looked down at it and waited for it to leave.

The woman patted a circle on to her thigh. _‘A friend of mine just passed too. It’s a cruel world.’_

Drawing her breath in through her teeth, Villanelle responded, _‘The cruellest.’_

****

It was not comforting to Villanelle to realise the boredom could still reach her in full force, even as everything else breezed off her. The woman, Sofia, was pouring on and on about her time in Rome. That dead friend turned out to be her lover, she was lonely, and she’d managed to slip in that her hotel room was upstairs. It took her about two seconds to make her elicit intentions known. She was down here drinking alone, she said, less depressing than the minibar.

Meanwhile, Villanelle was polishing off the last of the drink Sofia had bought her so that she could make her exit.

As Villanelle placed her glass down, empty except for ice cubes, Sofia’s hand fell onto hers. Villanelle regarded them measuredly, her fingers were slender, but their grip was stronger than Villanelle expected. On her wedding finger, two rings glistened. One was glamourous, its large diamond tipping the ring to one side with its weight and the other: the simple boring band of unhappiness.

It stirred something within Villanelle. She wanted to break all they symbolised, suck them from Sofia’s fingers as she screamed Villanelle’s name.

Anger and hunger returned to Villanelle. Purely feral, primal emotions, but it was something to chase.

Villanelle sat back, taking the woman in a new. Sofia was all wild hair and glossy eyes.

Villanelle reached out to tuck a stray curl behind Sofia’s ear. The action ground her endless chatter to a halt, pinned as she was by the sudden intensity of Villanelle’s gaze.

She felt Sofia shiver as she leant into her neck, whispering in her ear, _‘Let’s get out of here.’_

A smile, that was entirely Villanelle’s own, curling the ends of her lips.


	2. Lovers' Quarrel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Eve is recuperating in the hospital, processing what happened, Villanelle is doing anyone and anything she can to not confront things. Her clouded judgement puts her in danger.

**VILLANELLE – ROME**

Sofia managed to swipe her key card and get the door open even as Villanelle kissed her. They stumbled inside her hotel room, it was modern, open plan and lit only by the dim light that emanated from the city. Preoccupied with one another they bumped right into the kitchen counter.

‘I’ll get the lights,’ Sofia mumbled against Villanelle’s lips.

‘No lights,' Villanelle insisted, pulling Sofia flush with her body.

Sofia's lips tugged into a smile, kissing Villanelle back, she teased, 'Shy, are we?’

Villanelle smothered the question with her lips, desperate not to spoil this feeling, the deep, primal hunger that had settled in her belly, that made her insides clench. The fluorescent lights would be an unwelcome reminder of exactly how inadequate her company was.

‘Where is the bed?’ Villanelle demanded.

Sofia entangling their fingers, guiding Villanelle deeper into the hotel room. The bed was behind a bookcase, dividing it from the rest of the living areas.

She turned and sat on the bed to face Villanelle. Her hands slid down Villanelle’s body until she reached the large buckle of her belt. As Sofia worked at the buckle, Villanelle wound her fingers into her wild dark curls. Sofia’s shadowy face fell out of focus, Eve’s features filling in the blanks. Then the belt was sent flying, it clattered off the tiles behind them, initiating a race to get each other’s clothes off.

Villanelle’s hands were the perfect combination of fast and precise. She was undoing the clasp of Sofia’s bra while she was still working on the buttons of Villanelle’s shirt. She helped, taking care of the last two buttons before Sofia pushing the fabric from Villanelle’s shoulders.

Their skin was bare all besides their underwear, they paused to take each other in. Sofia’s bra hung off her shoulders, barely cupping her small breasts. She looked exactly how Villanelle had imagined from her tight dress, the fabric had mapped out her body.

Villanelle kept the appraisal short.

Sofia’s eyes, however, were caught on the scar on Villanelle’s stomach. Her hand reached for it, perhaps to trace its surface, to see how deep it went.

Villanelle caught her hand before she managed to and abruptly instructed, ‘Lay down.’

Pulling off her bra, Sofia did as she was told, all the while looking up at Villanelle with such delicious trepidation. Sofia writhed as Villanelle inched her skimpy lace underwear down her thighs. Villanelle stepped out of the fallen trousers that pooled at her ankles and joined her on the bed. Sofia’s legs encircled Villanelle, locking around her hips, holding their bodies close.

Villanelle felt Sofia’s wet centre, as their bodies pressed together but she took her time, kissing and teasing. Her fingers fluttered everywhere else, at Sofia’s nipples, her inner thigh, until it felt like Villanelle was depriving herself.

Eve’s rejection went unacknowledged by her conscious mind but seared through her in the need to devour this woman. Villanelle’s hunger for sex went beyond physical fulfilment, she hungered for her lover’s surrender. The moment they relinquished their power to her.

So violently, Villanelle needed to be wanted.

With a soft suggestive tug at her hair, Villanelle took Sofia invitation downwards, trailing her tongue along her skin as she descended her body, sucking her inner thigh, marking her with her teeth. Villanelle reached for any means of claiming her.

She was gentle at first learning Sofia’s tune, until her body buck begging for more. Villanelle’s smiled in anticipation, letting her mouth and hands fully explore her. It didn’t take long before Sofia’s eye flutter closed, and for her mouth to fall agape. Her body writhing with a need to squirm she couldn’t satisfy.

Villanelle could feel it coming, Sofia’s surrender. Frantic she grabbed Villanelle’s hand, ripping it from where it had been pressed against her stomach and hugged it to her chest, to paw at her breast. 

Villanelle pinched her hard nipple, sending her over the edge. Sofia was breathy and noisy as she came. A hand she had wound in Villanelle hair, holding her there as she rode out the last few waves of her orgasm.

Feeling her body finally unclench, Villanelle went to pull away, but Sofia’s didn’t let go, her other hand clamped down on the hand that still rest on her breast. Her touch turned rough, her fingernails burying into Villanelle’s scalp as she cranked at her arm.

‘This is for Raymond,' Sofia said, revealing a British accent.

Before Villanelle could digest her words, Sofia’s legs caught Villanelle’s neck in their noose. Her ankles hooked together then tightened, restricting Villanelle's blood flow. 

There was no panic, no fear, no anger. Maybe just a grain of annoyance as Villanelle's instincts kicked in. She recognised the triangle choke from her training. She also recognised the pressure in her head and neck. It was in tight. She had about five seconds before she blacked out and never woke up.

There was only one thing she could do, hit Sofia where it hurts. With her free hand, Villanelle punched Sofia’s blood engorged clit. Her reaction was involuntary, pausing her death squeeze for a moment, but it was enough for Villanelle to exploded out of the vice of her legs, freeing her arm in the process.

Sofia’s eyes refocused to see Villanelle’s shadowy form looming over her as an elbow hurtling towards her. It caught the bridge of her nose, breaking it. Immediately, blood poured out like it was a fountain.

With Villanelle’s full body weight seated on Sofia's stomach, there was nothing she could do to stop a second elbow. Villanelle felt the shards of bone and ruined cartilage grinding against each other upon impact. Eager for some payback, Villanelle clasped her hands around Sofia’s throat, shifting her hips to apply more pressure to the choke. Her slender fingers nearly encircled Sofia’s throat.

Blood was everywhere, cascading down Sofia’s face, pooling into her open mouth as she gasped for breath. It slicked her hands as she tried to pry at Villanelle’s grip. She found no purchase.

Villanelle saw the fear of jumping into her eyes as she realised all she was achieving in her attempt to fight back was to redded the sheets.

Feeling entirely in control, Villanelle let things slow down. She wanted to see all of it, to feel all of it. She was anxious at the thought of one detail slipping her by. She watched the blood pooled at the edge of her grip, the bubbling of Sofia’s deflated nose as she struggled to move air through her crushed windpipe.

Villanelle revelled in it, she tracked Sofia eyes for the moment she slipped away, where fear and disbelief turned into defeat and then finally, nothing as her body slackened and sagged. She was fading quickly, her bludging eyes and heaving chest stilled. It was like a transfer of power, as she shut down Villanelle came alive.

Gradually, her hands were able to encircle Sofia’s throat as its muscles loosened. When she was certain she was dead, Villanelle rolled off of her to lay beside her on the bed.

Still panting from the sex, the fight, and the thrill, her hands went to her stomach measuring the rise and fall of her breath. There her finger grazed the numb and smooth surface of her scar.

She took a deep breath and traced it round and round until her heart slowed.

********

Villanelle showered to wash the blood, sweat and arousal from herself. Naked and drip drying, she got a bottle of wine from the mini bar, which turned out not to be so mini. Champagne in hand, she returned to look down at Sofia body, who was still absolutely dead.

'Who are you?’ Villanelle asked her.

The question had only just starting to irk her. Sofia had mentioned Raymond. So, presumably, she was a part of The Twelve, but this was a tight turn around even for them.

Sofia’s phone lay face down on the kitchen counter, where she had left it in their haste. Villanelle used Sofia's fingerprint to open it. Quickly, she scanned its contents, from a look at her messages and various gaming apps, it was clear this wasn’t just a burner. Her photos were primarily of tourist destinations, Villanelle skimmed them half-heartedly until one blotchy face stuck out. She selected the photo; it was the woman and Raymond, monochromatic in red.

He was her handler?

She swiped across, in this one his crooked teeth were on display as he beamed out at Villanelle, their bodies were pressed close, Sofia’s eyes watching him.

 _No_ , Villanelle thought, rejecting her suspicions. She closed the camera and returned to the messages. There was a text conversation with Raymond, where he was saved as ‘Ray’ that she’d missed, it sickeningly polluted with x’s and o’s.

Villanelle wanted to puke.

Dropping the phone on the counter, she clawed the tastebuds from her tongue.

Yeah. Yep, she was going to puke.

**EVE - ROME**

All the staff in the hospital Eve had encounter spoke exclusively in Italian. Nevertheless, she still tried firing her questions at them. When could she leave? Had anyone been in looking for her? Did they have her phone? With looks that were a mix of confusion and pity, they spoke Italian well-meaningly to her as they cleared out her cathedra or cleaned her bandages.

It was night now. Time moved strangely in hospitals. It’s probably all the empty minutes one can’t fill.

Eve left her television chattering as her attempt to sleep stretched on into the early hours of the morning. She hated being incapacitated. Her mind kept working for ways to get out of there. Two things were clear from all her ruminating, she had to get out of Rome as soon as possible and she needed her phone. If she could walk on her own, she would stand a chance but aside from the hole through her body, the drugs she was on kept her too lightheaded to move without someone to brace against. Yet, they weren’t strong enough to help her sleep.

When she had thought herself around in circles about how to fix her predicament Villanelle invaded her mind. It was hard not to think about her, Eve reassured herself, with Villanelle handiwork crippling her body.

She was foolish. She thought her and Villanelle shared something special, that she was special. That she was Villanelle’s exception, now there was quite a lot of blood and stitches that proved otherwise.

Eve had watched the nurses change her dressings. The bloody gauze was pulled away to reveal her raw knitted flesh. She hadn’t seen the wound on her back, but it certainly required less attention.

The wound on her stomach was gnarly and larger than she had imagined. There was the spidery heart of her wound, where the stitches pulled together her stray flesh from the explosion of the bullet’s entry, then a neater longer incision like a dangling thread of web. It had been made in surgery, to widen the narrow but deep hole, so they could check for damage to her surrounding internal organs. There was no use stitching her up if she was bleeding internally. Given the placement of the bullet, this involved them running the length of her bowel, meaning they ran it through their hands like rope, read it like a long receipt and double-checking for any damage.

Her mortality and how close she came to dying was beyond denying with the wound uncovered. But after it was cleaned and bandaged over, the urgency of that fact evaded her, delivering her back to wonder about Villanelle.

She decided if she couldn’t keep Villanelle from her mind completely, she would compromise by filling every thought with vitriolic rage. Which wasn’t too hard, Villanelle had manipulated her, more so than Carolyn, then to top it all off shot her. Her mind skirted away from the substance of that manipulation; she still couldn’t face what she had done.

It seemed Villanelle and Eve could agree on one thing, they both were disappointed in who Eve really was. It turns out Eve was a killer, just not a cold-blooded one.

**VILLANELLE - ROME**

Villanelle continued her snooping, looking around for some luggage or ID and found a bag laid out in the closet. She recognised the language of it, innocuous, black, and too small for someone’s actual holiday suitcase. She flung the lid open, nursing her glass of champagne. Inside, there was money, a fake passport with a name Villanelle didn’t bother to read, it’s photo featured Sofia with an unflattering flat brown wig. She removed it from the bag and kept searching, there was a nurse’s costume and an identification badge for the emergency wing, conveniently without a picture only a name and a rank. Gaia Zanetti, trauma nurse – the Twelve had never been great at fake names.

A small glass vile was bundled up in the fabric of the nurse scrubs. Villanelle examined it; the label was for a harmless dose of pain medication but there was no doubt in her mind that its true contents was not.

There was a laptop too, at the very bottom of the case. She flung the laptop onto the bed, dismissively, when a small square of cardboard flutterer out from between the keyboard and screen. It was a postcard from Rome, blank and unsent with the message, ' _Hope to see you in London_ ’.

Automatically, she rotated it to find the barcode. She opened the laptop and letting it roar to life. The familiar decoding program the Twelve had made her use was already open waiting for a code, she keyed it in.

It felt like it took a millennium to digest, Villanelle waited for her own face to appear. She pondered what photo they had used. Was it her prison photo? One of her old passport photos or something recent, had they tailed her since she left the Twelve?

She wondered where their knowledge of her ended. Villanelle had always prided herself on being able to blend in, coast under any radar when she wanted but Raymond had known where she was, as had this woman. Based on Konstantin’s words they knew more about her family than she did. The Twelve were shaping up to be a real nuisance.

The laptops fan roared, as the page filled all at once.

At the top, it read, _Eve Polastri._

The page showed two photos of her, one in London and one in Rome. And an updated location, a wing in the hospital.

Then the message disappeared.

 _Huh_. Villanelle looked back at the woman's body. Eve was her target? She had been so cocky, so sure, she could kill Villanelle in retribution she hadn’t even bothered to take care of her real target.

Sitting there, Eve’s face fresh in her mind, Villanelle could feel the spindly black threads of love and fate beckoning her back to Eve. There was relief too. A quiet exhale that came with the confirmation Eve was alive. It was followed swiftly by disappointment and resentment of how much of a hold Eve still had over her.

Villanelle had thought shooting Eve, the violence of that act, the finality of it would snap their bond. At the very least free Villanelle from it, returning her the upper hand, but she was still trapped. She had been lured in by a weak echo of Eve. Raymond had exploited this same weakness, banking on Villanelle returning for Eve. She loathed to admit it but there were very real versions of those encounters where she didn’t emerge the victor. She hadn’t registered Sofia as a threat at all, so eager to let the world fall away from her.

Konstantin was right, Eve made her weak, predictable.

Those were words Villanelle had never been associated with. With Raymond dead and Villanelle, the logical culprit attempts on her life would not be in short supply. She needed to be sharp, free of weakness.

Villanelle knew what it would take to free herself. She would have to sever the link completely. She would have to kill Eve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like it.  
> With Christmas so close getting the next chapter up by next week might be tricky, but I'll do my best x


	3. Green Jelly and Goosebumps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle grapples with her feelings for Eve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this took longer than i thought  
> oh well, just hope you like it x

**VILLANELLE – ROME**

The sterile, cold air of the hospital bristled the skin of Villanelle’s exposed ankles. The fabric of her scrubs rose and constricted as she strutted the mazy halls with purpose. The shirt fit, or at least appeared to if Villanelle kept her hands by her side, otherwise, it crept up into a crop top. The outfit had been made for Sofia, who was more than a foot shorter than Villanelle.

To help sell the subpar disguise she’d co-opted the short brown wig. It must have helped, no one so much as glanced her way. She navigated the building with the map she had breezed over in the lobby, leaving her mind to prod and overthink.

Villanelle wasn’t sure what to expect. Eve’s room could be guarded. The generally hush around MI6’s operation in Rome led her to believe they would be covering all their loose ends. If that was the case Villanelle’s photo would have been passed around as enemy number one. A challenge this disguise wouldn’t aid her in overcoming.

Aware of this, she kept her eyes low and her hands deep in her pockets, cradling the vial and syringe. She readied herself, she would have to be quick.

The hospital was quiet, it was early, the sun fresh in the sky. The ward was a wide hallway, with rooms branching off of it. The bluey hue of morning lit the few rooms with their blinds draw. Many of the occupants in the ward were asleep or immobile, their nurse’s eyes hazy and trained on the clock, waiting for the shift change. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she counted the room numbers, they were climbing fast. She paused outside of 33. Its blinds were closed. There was no one outside of it on watch, the room felt still. In that stillness, Villanelle realised how fast her heart was beating. She held her breath, turning the handle ever so gently before peering in.

Involuntarily, she drew in a breath. There Eve was. Her eyes were closed, her mouth was slightly agape. She looked restful. Her hair was a halo of black tendrils that sprawling onto her pillow. 

She held the door close to her body like a shield, her surroundings drifted from her consciousness, everything but Eve melting away. A smile crossing her lips, until she became aware of how strange she looked peering into a dark room. She slipped inside, closing it carefully behind her.

There was a thrill, even from their proximity, it was palpable, zinging in the air, charging through Villanelle. The room was cloaked in darkness. Eagerly, she went for the chart hooked onto the end of Eve’s bed. Impatiently she skimmed it, much of it was medical mumbo jumbo Villanelle had never bothered to learn Italian for, but she found what she wanted: _Exit wound … no internal organ damage._

 _Perfect shot_ , she grinned to herself.

Villanelle paced the room curiously. It was a short journey. Eve’s room was untouched besides a half-finished cup of water and an uneaten green jelly on the nightstand.

She plucked a curl from Eve’s pillow and its form spiral around her finger. Villanelle wasn’t sure what she expected. But it wasn’t this. This felt too easy. Eve was unprotected. Villanelle assumed MI6 would be lingering. Twirling the ringlet, Villanelle realised she hadn’t believed Eve had left MI6 for her. She’d assumed Eve was spinning a web just as dangerous as her own. Eve’s rejection had drawn all that into question and now she couldn’t believe those actions meant what Villanelle had hoped.

This small conformation formed a poisonous hope.

It started as a whisper, maybe Eve would still run away with her. Maybe she was still torn.

No. Villanelle knew it in her heart, Eve’s rejection was final. She used her anger to fuel her resolve. All Eve offered her was a weakness.

She let that anger settle over her, as she walked to the IV, fiddling with the tubing that ran to Eve’s arm and finding the little injection port.

She’d killed someone like this before. It had been profoundly unsatisfying, any thrill she had to derive was the experience had been from her escape She didn’t get to see the kill. She didn’t get to feel it.

Perhaps, that was best for her and Eve. 

Gently, she took out the vial and syringe. Villanelle deduced that – it was the same substance she’d been provided in her former kill. Said to be painless though it would show up in an autopsy. The Twelve wanted to be effective, not silent.

She snapped the glass tip of the vial.

Villanelle could deposit two millilitres and Eve would drift off in her sleep, leaving Villanelle free to drift onwards. But to what? The randomness openness of that question didn’t satisfy her. Her fingers stalled as she was drawing from the vial. Her life had been so thoroughly and deliciously devoured by Eve. Every waking minute she occupied Villanelle’s thoughts, influenced her actions. What could come after her? What could outshine her?

Villanelle felt her breath destabilise. Her heart was racing, out beating Eve’s monitor. She gritted her teeth and hooked the port between her fingers to hold it steady, her hands shaking she inserted the needle.

That’s when she saw it, her life without Eve.

It was not the revert to normalcy, to her normalcy she had idealised, that had driven her to this point. Villanelle’s future stretched out before her, echoing and empty. It was a familiar place, the same emptiness and boredom she had been trying to outrun her entire life, finally swallowing her. She felt it behind her, its open arms waiting to reclaim her.

Her hand relinquished the IV port and grabbed the railing of Eve’s bedframe to steady herself. Something roses up in her throat, it made her swallow hard. Her breath stifling, like she had been kicked in the solar plexus. It was screeching. A cocktail of loud emotion fizzling inside of Villanelle. She could only equate the feelings that ravaged her to physical pain. It was cold and sterile like a knife buried in her side. In the next moment, it was hot like an infection eating her from the inside out.

She fumbled for a moment of calm. She reached inside of herself for that switch, to turn it all off, just as she had in the ruins. The instinct, the talent that had kept her alive, made her special, had failed her as well. The world was spinning.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do the one thing she had always been good at.

Still reeling, she dispelled the contents of the needle and vail down the washbasin in the corner of the room, then dumped them both in the bin.

Villanelle took the seat by Eve’s bed, reclining into the plastic chair despite its protest, throwing her feet up onto the thick metal frame of the bed. The postcard in her pocket bent. Looking up at the beige ceiling whatever had gripped her slowly released its hold, returning her to equilibrium.

Feeling defeated, she snatched the jelly from Eve’s bedside. She peeled off the plastic film and ignored spoon, tipping her head back. As the hunk of gelatine and sugar dissolved in her mouth, she watched Eve.

Villanelle pondered and probed her own heart. She’d meant what she said in the ruins, she loved Eve. But she hadn’t weighed up what that meant, she’d loved Anna too. But never more than she loved herself, more than she protected herself. That had always been where others faltered and Villanelle didn’t, she could kill anyone if it was in her interest. Even people she loved or so she thought. 

Truthfully, there had never been anyone like Eve. No one who perverted the course of Villanelle’s life, who challenged her, who hurt her as much. So much so she had consumed all the sparse threads of joy Villanelle had knitted together to make a life before her. Leaving her in a web of Eve Villanelle didn’t want to escape, she just wanted to understand.

If she couldn’t kill Eve, couldn’t kill her weakness, she would have to protect it.

She smiled, feeling like she finally understood something about their connection. They were inevitable.

********

The jelly cup lay ravaged and discarded at Eve’s beside.

Villanelle knew she should leave. She lingered, however, hoping if not consciously, Eve would wake. The calm that came with being in her presence silenced the need to flee and her urgency.

Withdrawing her legs from the metal frame, she moved to perch next to Eve. The springs howled and the whole bed shifted on its rocky frame.

She waited.

Eve responded with a little choked snored, but her eyes didn’t flutter.

Villanelle readjusted her shirt, feeling the goosebumps raising all over her midriff.

‘Eve,’ she whispered.

Again, nothing.

Villanelle leant right in until their faces were inches apart and pinched Eve’s nose. ‘Eve,’ she said, no longer lowering her voice.

Simultaneously, Eve’s eyes and mouth burst open. Gasping for breath, she found Villanelle, her hair short and brown, leaning over her, so close their noses almost touched. With this new breath, Eve went to scream.

Recognising her mistake, Villanelle managed to clamp her hand firmly over Eve’s mouth.

‘Shh!’ She pleaded.

Eve went into survival mode and attempted to scream, knowing it would be muffled. She let it occupy Villanelle as she lunged for the remote tied to the right side of her bed, that called for assistance. Villanelle was even faster than Eve, in her current state, and used her free hand to knock the remote panel. It bungee jumped off the side of the bed, its momentum was stopped when the cable that still tied it to the frame ran out. It clattered against the bedframe.

‘Stop it,’ Villanelle ordered, aware she retained the upper hand. She restrained Eve’s hand that was closest to the remote.

Eve’s eyes had immediately filled with fear. Villanelle found it hard to face them. As such she missed the moment they shifted, filling, instead, with rage.

Eve parted her lips a little, enough for one of Villanelle’s finger to slip between them and bit down. Villanelle felt a pop as teeth broke through layers of skin into the meaty pad of her finger.

Villanelle grimaced, not retracting her hand. Through gritted teeth, she bargained, ‘If you scream, I’ll get away and you won’t ever find out why I was here.’

Villanelle kept her expression calm, never mind that her intention had originally been to kill Eve.

It could have been the earnestness in her eyes or simply Eve’s insatiable curiosity. Regardless, Eve released Villanelle's finger.

‘Play nice,’ Villanelle cautioned as she removed her hand from Eve’s mouth, while she kept her other hand firmly circled around Eve’s wrist.

In the brief ceasefire, Villanelle was forced to realise her recent revelation hadn’t been shared by Eve, who still glowered at her.

Eve’s free hand whipped out and hit Villanelle. ‘You tried to kill me!’

‘Oh, get over it,’ Villanelle rolled her eyes, more focused on the teeth indents in her finger. Fascinated by watching her blood mingle with Eve’s spit. ‘You stabbed me. You don’t get to judge emotional outbursts.’

‘You tried to kill me,’ Eve repeated.

Villanelle sucked a ribbon of falling blood from her finger. ‘No. I missed. Just like you did.’ She met Eve’s eyes as her hand hovering over her own scar. ‘I can’t kill you, just like you can’t kill me. We are the same.’

‘Stop saying that,’ Eve spat back.

Villanelle sighed. ‘Do you remember his name?’

Eve was confused. ‘Who?’

‘Ugly axeman.’

‘I-.’

Villanelle cut her off. ‘It was Raymond.’

‘I knew that,’ Eve said through her teeth.

‘He has killed more people than me if that helps?’ She looked up at Eve, her face going soft.

It made Eve sick how easily Villanelle's features could adopt such innocence. Eve didn't know what Villanelle hoped to achieve with all of this. Surely, Eve's forgiveness meant nothing to her.

‘Then you should have killed him yourself,’ Eve spat back.

‘Eve Po-Polastea?’ A voice came from behind them, its heavy accent stumbling over Eve’s last name.

Severing their eye contact, Villanelle and Eve’s heads snapped to the door. A plump nurse stood behind the threshold; eyes furrowed into her brow as she re-examined the name on her clipboard. She gave up on the pronunciation and looked up to the two of them, their faces were frozen in shock.

The nurse waved her pen at Villanelle. In Italian, she asked, ‘ _Are you the translator_?’

Quickly, Villanelle whipped up a polite smile. ‘ _Yes_.’

The nurse beamed, ‘ _Good, have you asked her how her pain is_?’

Eve watched the nurse's posture relax.

 _Of course, Villanelle could speak Italian_ , she thought bitterly. Eve did her best to convey her predicament to the woman and nearly shouted, ‘She doesn’t work here; she is trying to kill me.’

Confusion crossed the nurse’s face, she looked to Villanelle for clarification, ‘ _What’s she saying_?’

‘ _She’s really constipated_ ,’ Villanelle said, casting a look of pity back at Eve.

‘ _The meds will do that_.’ She nodded, her eyes went back to the chart as she pulled the cart across the threshold.

Villanelle took the moment without eyes on her to swivel back to Eve. She clamped down on Eve's hands and murmuring under her breath, ‘Shut up.’

The nurse shut the door, after checking the hallway, then closed the distance between her and Villanelle, who had readjusted so her body to conceal Eve’s expression.

Eve felt Villanelle’s body coil, watched her eyes emptying out. She was preparing herself, aware of what might have to be done. Eve recognised that look, cold and complete apathy towards taking someone’s life.

She jerked at the grip Villanelle had of her wrists to gain her attention. She tried to meet those distant eyes. Eve whispered, ‘Don’t.’

‘ _Did she tell you what happened to her? It’s all been very hush-hush. The other nurses are worried_ ,’ the nurse said, shifting in a little closer, her voice lowering to a whisper.

Eve wasn’t sure if it was her words or the nurses that reached Villanelle, but she reanimated. She turned back to the nurse, with a smile. Villanelle had noted the nurse's mischievous expression, she knew how to work this type of person.

‘Please, get security,’ Eve pleaded, trying to meet the woman’s eyes over Villanelle’s shoulder. But the nurse was entirely infatuated by Villanelle, eager for a response.

Hiding the smirk that played on her lips, Villanelle made a show of leaning in and lowering her voice, ‘ _She killed someone._ ’

‘ _Jesus_ ,’ she reeled back, casting a panicked look at Eve.

Eve watched her face shift. ‘What is she - what are you saying to her? Don’t listen to her, please.’

The nurse cast a worried look at Eve, ‘ _What’s wrong with her_?’

 _‘I don’t think she likes you very much_.’

Growing uncomfortable, the nurse backed up, Eve’s increasing protest didn’t help. The nurse cut a glance back at her pill cart to retrieve a plastic cup with three large capsules and sheepishly handed them to Villanelle before gesturing to Eve, ‘ _Could you?_ ’

Releasing one of Eve’s wrists, she happily took it. ‘ _Of course._ ’

The nurse retreated with a heavy clash as she hastily dragged her cart back over the threshold. The door clattered shut behind her.

‘Don’t,' Villanelle cautioned Eve as she was getting up to put down the cup.

Villanelle was somewhat surprised when Eve did nothing but wring the marks on her wrists, welcoming back the blood flow.

Before Villanelle sank back onto the bed, she plucked a piece of cardboard from her pocket, ‘I have a gift.’

Villanelle watched eagerly as Eve unfolded it. It was the postcard. Perplexed, Eve regarded it in silence until she asked, ‘What is it?’ Her tone was disarmed by confusion.

Villanelle sighed, disappointed by Eve’s reaction. ‘A puzzle piece,’ she responded.

Eve had expected it to be an unsent postcard from her but the address section was blank and the message was impersonal. Eve reread the simple greeting over and over, searching for a pattern. 

‘Thank you?’ she said, cautious to stay on Villanelle’s good side.

This was the first time Eve wasn’t sure what Villanelle wanted. She couldn’t hold the same blind faith in their connection, that Villanelle’s obsession that she would keep her safe. When she first woke to see Villanelle, she knew she was there to kill her. But the minutes limped on in her presence and she was less and less sure of what Villanelle’s wanted.

Eve didn’t put the card back down, happy that for now, Villanelle was trusting her with the use of her hands. Eve clutched the postcard between their bodies like a shield. Discretely, she shifted her body, painfully over, away from Villanelle as if she was offering her more space on the bed.

Villanelle took the space up quickly, and leaning over Eve, so one hand was planted on either side of her torso. ‘You are welcome.’ There was beat, then Villanelle’s eyes shot to Eve’s lips, ‘You can’t keep denying the truth of this.’

‘I hate you.’ Eve took this chance to recoil further to her right.

‘If I wanted you dead, you would be. You think I wanted any of this? I wanted to go to Alaska.’ Villanelle leant back, rolling her eyes as if merely entering into this discussion was draining her.

Free of those cold green eyes, Eve reached her right arm out, beyond both her and Villanelle’s bodies. It wasn’t close enough. The remote was still far away.

‘Is this what you want really, just to go back to your life? Niko doesn’t know you.’ Villanelle watched her words make Eve squirm further away from her. Villanelle stalked her, measuring Eve’s face with her eyes.

Eve’s fingers finally grazed the cable, that connected to the remote to the bed rail. Extending her fingers down the length of it, she began pulling the cable, centimetre by centimetre.

Eve intensified her side of their eye contact; demanding that Villanelle’s eyes stay locked with hers. ‘He knows me better than you do.’

Villanelle pursed her lips in mock sadness and traced a curl that was stuck to the pillow with static. ‘Do you think he could love the real Eve?’

Eve’s nostrils flared and she gave the remote one more yank.

Villanelle heard the remote clattering against the metal frame but it was too late. When she looked over, Eve had her hand wrapped around it, the button was flashing red.

Villanelle couldn’t help but smile. She made a point of taking her time. She stood from the bed then smoothed the sheets of her presence. She paused at the threshold, that smile growing mischievous, ‘You’ll get bored.’

It sounded like a promise. Then she slipped from sight.

**EVE – ROME**

There was a knock at Eve’s door. She looked up to see a police officer. She sat up and prayed he spoke English.

‘It’s been a busy time for us. And sadly, I am one of the only officers who can speak good English.’ He smiled sheepishly taking the same seat Carolyn and Villanelle had.

‘That’s alright,’ she said, dialling up the warmth in her smile.

He was surely referring to Aaron Peel and the general chaos that had erupted around the city. She couldn’t understand the language but from the imagery alone on the news, this did not boded well for Italy’s reputation, to have a man of Aaron Peel’s status killed on their watch. The eyes of the world suspected it was their doing.

He pulled out a notepad. The name badge on his uniform read, Andrea. He was young, in his early twenties. The visible signed of sleep deprivation aged his face a little. He rubbed his eyes a few times before opening the pad. Eve wondered how long he’d been working. Up close she could see the threads of broken blood vessels in the whites of his eyes. Then she wondered what he was reading in that little pad. Was that Carolyn’s handiwork? What tale had Carolyn spun to justify Eve being here?

He finally spoke, interrupting Eve’s spiral. ‘It looks like your shooter dropped off the face of the earth, Mrs Polastri.’

‘Please, Eve is fine,’ she corrected him. Injected all the familiarity and innocence she could into her voice.

‘We intend to get you safely back on British soil very soon regardless,’ He offered what she thought was a polite smile. Then his eyes stilled, dialled in. ‘You don’t remember anything about who shot you?’

‘Nope,’ she said, popping her "p" too sharply. ‘I got shot in the back remember.’

‘So, no contact, before or after?’

‘Sorry. No.’

‘That’s strange, a crime like this is normally performed with motivation or ill will. But you would know that working for MI6.’ His sweetness melted away to reveal suspicion.

‘I didn’t see anybody,’ she reiterated. She forgot to smile.

His nose wrinkled. He smelt bullshit. To be honest, so could Eve.

‘What were you doing in those ruins?’

‘I got lost.’

He held her gaze. A challenge Eve answered. She could feel him searching the edges of her, all the folds and crinkles in her exterior for some truth. 

Then he drew in a long sigh that morphed into a yawn. He looked at his watch through watery eyes. ‘Fine,’ he conceded, his interested waning.

He got to his feet pulling a plastic baggy out of his pocket and dropped it onto Eve’s lap. It contained her phone and passport.

He knew she was hiding something but seemed to have decided it wasn’t worth it, with a bored tone he informed her. ‘We’ll fly you out in two days, provided your health doesn’t decline.’

Two days. Her heart leapt, that seemed like a lifetime. If her own boredom didn’t kill her, Villanelle might just change her mind and come back to finish the job in that amount of time.

‘Do you have any kind of protection you could post?’ Her voice was raised, a hairline crack in the demeanour she had been exuding.

He was halfway out the door, her words caused him to pause. ‘We don’t post guards for _random_ attacks,’ he said with a smirk.

‘Asshole,’ Eve said, not waiting for him to move out of earshot.

Eve's phone was smattered with fingerprint powder, it collected in the new cracks in the screen. Their suspicions weren’t unwarranted. But the officer’s departure told her they hadn’t connected her presence and Aaron Peel’s assassination yet. She and British intelligence posed an annoyance. She just hoped that naivety lasted long enough for her to make it back home.

Her phone was ringing in her hand as soon as she switched it on. Niko’s name flashed across her screen paired with the holiday snap of the two of them kissing she had picked for his caller ID. Well, that hurt, and she was sure this phone call would too.

She answered.

‘Where are you?’ Niko said, his panic and relief intermingling.

‘Rome. I didn’t realise I had to tell you when I was going away,’ she shot back. She was ready for a fight, she relished it, to spit fire at an already burnt bridge. If Niko wanted to have it out, Eve was more than game.

‘You need to come home,’ his voice hitched and then broke.

Eve’s loaded insult went unfired and she found herself asking, ‘Is everything okay?’

There was a whimper on the other end. Oh god, he was crying.

She didn’t think she couldn’t handle whatever that meant right now. Whether that be reconciliation or complete separation.

His quivering mouth minced his words, but Eve managed to decipher them. ‘Gemma’s – Gemma’s dead.’

‘What?’ Eve asked.


	4. But You're Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle ponders her next steps. Eve returns home, unsure of the state of her affairs.

**VILLANELLE - ROME**

Villanelle was laying low in Rome, waiting out the Twelve. She could feel their presence, their faceless army searching for her. She hoped that if she waited long enough, they would assume they missed her, that she had slipped through their fingers, again. Then she could use the money Konstantin gave her to head further away, her instincts said to flee Europe. The Twelve’s grip had too firm of a grip on the continent.

However, Alaska’s appeal had disintegrated.

Villanelle felt stranded. She knew where she wanted to go. Knowing Eve’s whereabouts was like a siren call. She’d been lucky to make it out of that hospital the first time without picking up a tail from MI6 or the Twelve. That is exactly where they would expect her to go. She hated that, hated even recognising that it was a predictable move.

To counter this, her current plan of waiting it out was smart and boring.

The waiting was tedious. She’d gone shopping, sacrificed her crucial funds to kill some boredom. She laid on her hotel bed in her new blazer and heels, with nowhere to go and no audience their luxury slipped away.

To say Villanelle had ever trusted the Twelve would be inaccuarate. She’d felt some kinship for Konstantin and their understanding, their relationship stood exterior to the organisation. Konstantin understood she was loyal only to herself.

It was then that Villanelle was confronted with an obvious paradox. She was in survival mode, following her instinct, and all those instincts had been taught to her by the people hunting her.

She had always felt she was using the Twelve just as much, if not more than they were using her. Now she felt like she’d been bested, used. She hadn’t given them much credit, hadn’t cared about their bigger picture.

Konstantin had highlighted how wrong she was his words still taunting her.

_‘Mine are all dead.’_

_‘Most of them, sure.’_

If he wasn’t lying, baiting her, then Konstantin, the Twelve knew more about her than she did.

That was her blood, her truth, her knowledge. And she wanted it back. 

**EVE - LONDON**

‘What is that? Is that a banana?’

‘Hmm?’ Eve snapped back to herself, where she lay prone in her and Niko’s living room. She’d been miles away, her mind jet lagging behind her body.

As if for the first time she took in her surroundings, it looked like home, the soft glow of the fairy lights, her memories framed and smiling out at her. It smelt like home too. Browning butter and garlic. The icy friction that passed between her and Niko was alien, however.

They were yet to address it. "It" being Gemma’s body. That was, as Niko had described to her on the phone, plastic-wrapped like an old couch and stuffed in his mother’s old chest. Prior to its career as a coffin, it housed numerous family heirloom and photos of her upbringing in Poland. Gemma was going to be a problem, it made Eve’s head spin just thinking about it.

Niko was in the kitchen, juggling multiple burners for their two-person dinner. He had a habit of throwing himself into a culinary challenge whenever he was stressed. He had spent the car ride back from the airport explain the recipe to her, he had an anecdote from the collection of each ingredient. Eve hadn’t been listening, his familiar dribble allowed her to switch off as the London streets rolled by. Even now, with the smell wafting to her, she couldn’t remember what he was cooking.

‘This,’ he insisted. He’d skewed a crystallised mush from the ceramic salt cellar with his folk and held it aloft to her.

She propped herself up a little higher, craning to see over the seats of the dining table. It looked like a white dog shit.

She scrunched up her face. ‘Throw it out.’

‘It’s ruined the salt,’ he said, and with unjust aggression threw the clump into the compost bin.

‘Niko, it doesn’t need salt,’ she assured him. His posture was pinched and tense. Eve intercepted his planned retort, ‘just finish up ... and come sit.’

Closing his eyes, he spun the wedding band on his finger unconsciously. He caught himself in the motion and exhaled. Niko knew he couldn’t avoid it any longer, sitting down with Eve, unoccupied, only the death of Gemma to discuss.

In silence, he served up two plates and brought them to the coffee table. He placed Eve’s on the pillow in her lap.

Like a trained waiter he refreshed Eve’s memory of the dish: dry-aged rib-eye, turnip and potato mash with micro carrots and homemade gravy.

Looking down at it, Eve realised she didn’t feel hungry. There was a hollow pit in her stomach, sure but it was greedy, ravenous, it was consuming her. It made her feel sick.

Out of appreciating for Niko’s work and his fragile mental state she crafted a bite. The plate seesawed on the pillow as she carved through the mid-rare steak.

After chewing a restrained bite, she asked, ‘Are you okay?’

He didn’t look at her and just sighed like he was under a great weight and said, ‘No. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face. When my thoughts wander, I am back in the storage unit.’

‘What did Villanelle want?’ Eve asked a little too eagerly.

His jaw clenched. His eyes cut away. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t remember anything else? Just-.’

He cut her off. ‘Just Villanelle threatening our lives before knocking me unconscious and waking up to find Gemma dead,’ he spat back. His head was hanging in his hands, he peered up at her, registering her prolonged silence. ‘Don’t you believe me?’

‘No. No, of course, I do.’ Eve knew she was being cold. Analytical. It felt like she was at work, staring at their life strung up in a web of red string, tangled by Villanelle’s hand. ‘I’m just trying to put it all together in my head, all the pieces we have to account for.’

She watched him pale, catching on. ‘Can’t we tell someone from MI6? They know about Villanelle, what she’s capable of. They can add it to the docket when they catch her.’

Eve shook her head. She’d already run through it all.

Eve couldn’t trust Carolyn anymore. There was no guarantee that Carolyn wouldn’t see this as the last straw for Eve. Carolyn was like swamp water, her motive, her loyalties were too murky to wade through. Eve wasn’t going to make the mistake of trusting her with Niko’s freedom.

No. The cold reality of her world was finally sinking in, it was a dog-eat-dog world and she had been laying with wolves.

Eve had a feeling unless they brought Villanelle in, handcuffs and all, they would never be clear of this. It all pointed back to Niko. That was no coincidence. Villanelle had never been one to leave no trace, she was too proud of her work however the satisfaction of messing with Niko would fill that void.

‘She made it look like you did it, then you hid the body and went home. Even if they believe she did it, you’re looking at perverting the course of justice, tampering with a body. And it gives them every reason not to trust you. If it was my case with these facts. I’d look to you first.’ Eve tried to keep her tone soft, apologetic but she needed the reality of their situation to land. ‘A freelancing assassin is a fairy-tale. The man who just left his wife and has been staying with the victim, well, that’s a classic middle-aged misogynist capable of murder.’

‘Thanks.’ He deflated.

‘It looks best if you move back in here.’

He combed his hands through his hair, sheepish, ‘I already did.’

Eve nodded. ‘Do people know you were staying with her?’

‘I didn’t want that getting around at work, but I’m sure people noticed.’

‘We’ll think of a story.’ She reached out, laying her hands over his, where it drummed against his thigh. ‘We can fix this. We’ll get rid of the body; nobody has to know.’

‘How do you suggest we do that?’ He asked, doubtful.

‘If she stays locked up in your mother’s old trunk in your storage locker, they won’t need an investigation to arrest you. We need to move the body. See if you can borrow someone’s truck, that will be a start.’

He looked as unsure as Eve felt but nodded, taking his orders. ‘And then what?’

She shrugged. ‘Currently, I’m only working at about one step at a time.’ Then another hole in her understanding of that night appeared, ‘How exactly did you get out of the storage locker?’

‘I waited 'til morning, 'til the owner rocked up. I told him, my wife and I got into a row and she’d locked me in.’ He stroked the yellow and brown bruise that marked his eye socket. ‘I think he thought I was in an abusive marriage.’

Instinctively, Eve’s other hand went to trace the wound as if she could wipe it away. She met his eyes, ‘We’ll take care of this. We’ll go back to our life.’

Eve didn’t believe that, but she needed him to. With her body and mind mangled, she needed Niko, her exterior slice of normality and sanity to stay intact. With that look alone she was attempting to hold a wildfire back from the last flower in her garden.

‘Eve,’ he said, as he guided her hand from his face and took his other hand from beneath hers, severing their contact. ‘We aren’t fine. You’ll fix this because _you_ are the one who bought this madness into my life. But I’m sorry. I can’t pretend.’

Niko stood up, moving out of her reach.

‘But you’re mine. You _love_ me.’ The words erupted from her, desperate and full of conviction. She hadn’t realised how much she had been hanging onto that. Niko always loved her. He’d done enough loving for the two of them. He had anchored her for so long.

He flinched. ‘I do,’ such earnest carried the words from him but the eyes that met hers were galvanised with tears, ‘But I look at you and I don’t see the woman I love.’

Eve didn’t know what to say to that. Eve hadn’t apologised much in their marriage, Niko’s anger expired fast. He was always the first one to clear the dishes and move off the couch. The one to wave the white flag. Eve apologised with sex and a nice bottle of wine. As she cast her memory back, they read more like ceasefires than apologies. She couldn’t think of the last time she had uttered the words to him.

For the first time in who knows how long she really looked at him and saw him. He’d backed up positioning himself beneath a severe light. His face stayed sad and flat. His moustache concealed the thinly pressed line of his lips. He was past mad, he was miserable.

When you love someone and you spend every day with them, you don’t notice them aging. That look, that exhaustion it peeled away the haze. She saw how old he was, how old they both were. All those years of marriage hung bare on his face. Like an old cliff side being beaten by thrashing waves, she had worn him down. 

She knew the words would do nothing, she said them anyway, ‘I am sorry, Niko.’

He didn’t meet her eyes, his mouth knotted beneath his moustache. His eyes clouded and glistening. She thought he might say something, words brimming like his eyes. Instead, he sighed, a gust of air that carried something he couldn’t say off with it.

‘I’m going to bed,’ he said and climbed the stairs to their room alone.

It felt final. Yet, it didn’t reach Eve.

She polished off her and Niko’s wine, that she most definitely was not meant to mix with her cocktail of medication.

Was that why she didn’t feel the pain? In its absence a harsh loneliness consumed her. All the creaks and gusts of wind became threats, enemies gathering and conspiring.

Eve felt exposed in her makeshift bed. The sirens flashing at her from the television did not help, without thinking she took the serrated steak knife from beside her remaining dinner and clutched it beneath her pillow.

She fell asleep like that, drowning it all out to a midnight episode of Cops.

She woke to Niko putting on his coat, dressed for work and heading for the door.

‘Niko,’ she called for his attention, her voice all thick with sleep.

‘I’ve called Elena. She’s coming to keep an eye on you. I’ve to go to work,’ his tone was clipped, and he didn’t halt, the lock on the front door shifted.

‘Niko,’ Eve repeated.

She heard the hallway go quiet. He let out a sigh, then said, his tone making it clear there was no room for debate, ‘They can’t afford to be down two teachers. Besides, it doesn’t look good if I am not there.’

Eve noted the bitter edge to his voice. She didn’t call him back the next time he went to leave.

 _He’d come around with time_ , she told herself, not at all sure it was true.

********

The moment Elena walked in it felt like the old days. The days of karaoke and croissants. Another lifetime.

Elena slapping her bags down without a greeting, when she straightened up, she regarded Eve and said, ‘Well, you’ve fucked it haven’t you.’

‘Did Niko tell you everything?’

‘Actually, Kenny and I have been…’ Elena trailed off feeling Eve’s interest intensify.

Eve’s eyebrows shot up, ‘Wow.’

‘Not that, nothing has happened just… texting and calling and chatting to the early hours of the morning.’ It was like Elena got caught in a thought, a memory and it made her smile and her eyes go starry. ‘Don’t judge me. He’s cute… when you get him into something other than those shorts.’

‘Wow,’ Eve repeated, smirking back.

‘Stop saying that, you can’t judge,’ Elena said, the playful glee drained from her voice.

That sobered Eve up. Maybe it wasn’t like the old days after all.

Eve pivoted. ‘What have you been up to?’

‘I am back at MI5, got your old job actually. Turns out they were pretty happy to have someone who knew what they were doing with you, Bill and Frank all gone.’

‘That’s great, really.’

She knocked Eve’s leg. ‘I pulled a sicky to come and take care of you.’

‘Thank you.’ Eve was sincere, she had enough of being left alone with her thoughts. ‘Niko can’t stand to be around me.’

Elena shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t know anything about that, but I could go some tea,’ she said. She got to her feet, knowing her way around she had the kettle on before Eve could ask.

While the tea brewed Elena cleared the remnants of their dinner, not noticing the missing knife that Eve had tucked a little deeper into the cushions. She wasn't ready to give it up.

Eve grasped her tea as soon as it was offered. The warmth brought her hands to life as she inhaled the steam.

Across from her, Elena hadn’t taken a sip, her teaspoon doing laps, clanking against the rim. She put it down untouched. ‘Did you really invite Villanelle into the investigation?’

There was certain honestly, Eve could have with Elena. She understood Eve. And she'd call Eve out if she thought she smelt bullshit. ‘In the long and short of it? Yes.’

‘Are you out of your mind?’ Elena demanded.

‘I think I might be.’

Elena leant in, trying to solidify her words in Eve’s mind. ‘She’s a killer. I don’t know what else you need to see to prove that to you.’

It had been proven. There was a pile of bodies, putrid and wide-eyed, that Eve could never forget about. ‘I know.’

‘You say that, but I don’t think you get it. The Twelve didn’t kill Bill, she did, to get to you. And this,’ Elena gestured to Eve’s wound, ‘Kenny told me you stabbed her. I am guessing this is, what revenge? How many times do you think she can miss?’

Elena was vocalising all the question Eve had been trying to answer while she’d been bedridden. Eve didn’t have an answer. She’d always understood what Villanelle was and had hated her and hunted her because of that. And loved her too.

The blood on her own hand changed things. As she was performing the mental gymnastics to justify how she still might be a good person despite the thing she had done, there was a carryover. Every inch she freed herself with her philosophising she shifted her understanding of Villanelle's motivations and morality. The shades of grey she was forced to embrace threatened to shallow her borders of black and white.

A curt knock at the door freed Eve from the interrogation.

Elena went to the door and exclaimed the visitor's identity like a fangirl. ‘Carolyn!’

The disembodied voice of Carolyn was unrattled by her presence, straight to the point, ‘Elena. I’m here to speak to Eve.’

‘Of course, she just in here. Eve,’ she called as she entered the room like Eve hadn’t heard their short exchange.

Carolyn was unusually incombered, carry a large briefcase with her. She unburdened herself, placing it on the cluttered coffee table, over the magazines and pill packets.

Eve and Elena were still, in quiet revelry, as Carolyn unlatched the case. However, she paused with the case only open a crack, looking to Elena.

‘Elena,’ Carolyn prompted.

‘Right, I’ll go.’ She looked around herself, lost for a moment then scuttled up the stairs.

Watching her go, Carolyn opened the case. It was underwhelming, a laptop and an unlabelled folder.

She set up the laptop and pulled the top piece of paper from the folder, laying it before Eve.

It was a grainy still image pulled from a CCTV camera. It was zoomed in close on someone’s profile, their face obscured further by the sweeping brim of a hat. Even with those few pixels, Eve knew.

'That’s Villanelle.’

'I’d worried as much,' Carolyn’s lips pulled into a firm line. 'It was taken in the corridor of a hotel. She exited a room two hours later with a suitcase and her lady friend was no more.’

‘Lady friend?’ Eve asked.

Carolyn presented her laptop, clicked the space bar, the screen cut to crime scene photos. A tight shot of a woman’s face - ribbons of black blood crusted to her skin and only stopping at the edged of deep bruising on her neck. Eve’s brain had already done the math, likely death by strangulation. It would have taken a few minutes to slowly wring out someone’s neck, like a towel. 

Eve’s hand twisted in a fist full of her blanket.

‘The victim was a British citizen. The Italians are looking to palm this one off while they are dealing with Aaron Peel’s assassination,’ Carolyn said, watching Eve not the screen.

 _Click_.

A wide shot, of the woman's naked body, splayed out in bloody satin sheets.

_Click._

Her lowered body and gentiles were unmutilated aside from a bruise in the shape of a bite mark on her inner thigh. Suggesting sexual activity presumably before the foul play. For this assumption, Eve had no basis. There was no way to tell Villanelle hadn’t done it post-mortem from a photo alone. It was just that she couldn’t see that in Villanelle, couldn’t imagine her doing that. Villanelle craved control, yes, but not fear at least, not sexually. She needed people to desire her, she wanted them to willfully submission to her.

Eve relayed a clipped version of her observations to Carolyn, who nodded along either agreeing or suggesting she had a similar hypothesis.

'Was there anything else?’ Eve asked.

Carolyn flicked to a video; it was the footage the original still had been taken from. Two women were holding hand in the hotel hallway as a woman fumbled for a key card to unlock the door. Villanelle, though Eve couldn’t see her face, interrupted the other woman, pushing her against the door. The woman’s dark hair and the obnoxious hat obscuring Villanelle’s face. They were kissing, feverously. Villanelle’s hands entangled in the dark locks, playing and grabbing, playing and grabbing. 

It took Eve too long to recognise the woman as the pale corpse. It was like night and day. There she was her face smooth, bright and alive. She was pretty, beautiful even, and resoundingly Villanelle’s type.

Subconsciously, Eve tucked a loose curl behind her ear. It didn’t stay.

Carolyn caught her. ‘Precisely. It looks like she's gone Bundy. Killing lookalikes.’

‘She has a type.’ She remarked, bitterly. ‘But she doesn’t kill like that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘These no link between death and sex for her. Otherwise, Anna would have been dead not her husband. There would have been bodies all across Paris. Sure, it feeds the same need for control. Sex for her, it's impulsive, a validation, for someone to submit to her, to offer that power over them in the bedroom. It’s narcissistic. Killing is different, it’s the ultimate trip for her, she wants to savour it. In that moment of fear and violence her victim's world narrows to her, she is their God. It is to her they pray for salvation, for mercy and then she, engorged by that power… snuffs them out.’ Eve couldn’t believe it occurred as Carolyn was presenting it, like predator and prey. But what did she really know about Villanelle? Eve’s body, her mind bore the wounds of her failure to pin Villanelle down, a failure to run, to evade a predator. Maybe Eve was wrong, maybe Villanelle had snapped. The money didn’t matter anymore just the chaos.

Carolyn was unconvinced, ‘She’s killed every person she had a relationship with or tried to.’ She gestured to Eve for effect.

Eve was tempted to point out they hadn’t had a relationship, but that was tripping up on technicalities. And the little blossoming of anger and indigence in her chest, let Eve know Carolyn was right. Instead, she said, ‘Anna killed herself, Konstantin was a job, Nadia - I don’t think she cared for her anymore.’

‘And you?’ Carolyn challenged.

‘I don’t know. When she kills on her own terms, she savours it, its theatrical and designed to flatter herself. With anyone she has loved she has sought out degrees of separation, pills, a gun and several paces. She doesn’t stay to watch, to drink it in.’

Carolyn frowned. ‘You think she feels remorse?’

Eve shook her head, grappling to find the right words. ‘Definitely not. I think killing is one of the only things that makes her feel anything and she’s afraid of what she might feel when she kills someone she actually cares about.’

Carolyn smiled and rocked back, taking Eve in.

‘What?’ Eve frowned.

‘We received the victim's phone details this morning. This was her lock screen.’ From the folder, she pulled one last sheet and laid it on top of the laptop's keyboard.

It was the victim, her face only took up half of the frame, beside her was Raymond. His hair slicked back and his whole face blotchy and red. He looked drunk, and they looked cosy.

‘Oh,’ was the only reaction Eve could form. She was part of the Twelve and a bit more.

‘Your hunch, though unfounded without this.’ She tapped the paper. ‘Is correct. It seems Villanelle was lured into the perfect trap, seduced and secluded. This woman, whoever she was, aimed to dispatch of Villanelle in the midst of intimacy and well, we know who won.’

‘Testing me then?’

‘Seeing if you have still got it. Yes.’ Carolyn took back the laptop. ‘We are working on getting her laptop and phone sent to us. Raymond would already be dead by then; her orders couldn’t have come from him. I want to know how the Twelve were talking to her.’ There was an edge to her voice. Carolyn was on the hunt, felt like she was finally scratching the surface of this organisation.

‘There was nothing else left behind?’ Eve asked.

‘Just plenty of DNA courtesy of Villanelle. It seems like she took most of the woman’s belongings with her,’ Carolyn answered, getting to her feet shrugging back into a long coat. Looking down at Eve she asked, ‘When can you come back?’

‘Bed rest for two-three weeks,’ Eve answered, a little taken aback, underestimating her worth to Carolyn. ‘I suppose I am back on the team then.’

‘Probationally,’ Carolyn conceded gathering her things. ‘Stay sharp. Do a sudoku.’


	5. Spaghetti

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle makes good on a promise.

**EVE - LONDON**

Elena backed off after Carolyn’s exit. The tension, the assault of her questions lingered, however, running around Eve’s mind. And soon Elena left as well, hoping to make it home before dark. 

Without another’s company to stimulate her, Eve fell asleep again. It was like being back in the hospital. Eve hopped, skipped and jumped through time. She was disconnected, neither the playground of sleep nor the real world carried enough meaning to hold her for long.

She only woke when the real world’s demand for her was louder, summoning her with the clattering of pots and pans. 

The room was dim. This surprised Eve as she stared up at the ceiling listening to Niko work in the kitchen. He mustn’t have wanted to wake her. At first, she revelled in the kind sentiment before realising it was more likely he was trying to avoid her. 

Despite that, Eve felt oddly rested. Her body awakened as she cautiously stretched in the confines of the couch. Her head tilted back, her hair spilling over the armrest. She came face to face with the sheer curtains of their front windows, white lace against the blackness. The world outside had turned dark. 

Blood rushed to her head, dizzying her for a moment. She put off sitting up to face Niko, letting her senses flood with her surroundings. The small room was already filled with the scent of fresh aromatics and something more, the waxy, lavender smell of burning candles. 

‘What are you making?’ Eve asked.

‘Take a guess,’ Villanelle cooed. 

Eve sat bolt upright, then immediately winced, her posture collapsing in pain. 

‘Don’t strain yourself.’ Villanelle frowned from behind the island bench; her eyes remained downcast married to their task. Like a teacher, not looking up from their marking as they told off a student. 

_The knife_ , Eve thought. 

Keeping her hand beneath the blanket, she retrieved the steak knife. It slid in her sweaty grip and she realised how futile of a defence it was. Villanelle stood across the room. And as offences go it was nothing. All Villanelle would have to do was search the draws behind her for their longest gnarliest knife to dwarf Eve's. 

She kept it close however, maybe the element of surprise might prove to be enough to protect her. 

Frozen, she watched Villanelle, calmly frolic behind the counter. She’d dressed up. Her outfit struck a different tone than the moaning gown she wore last time. The texture of the crimson velvet blazer glimmered in the candlelight. Underneath that she wore a white button-up. The rest of the outfit was obscured and protected by an apron Eve recognised. It had been a last-minute Valentine’s day present for Niko. Inside a pink love heart, the apron read, “ _Mr Good Lookin’ is cookin_ ’” in bubbly letters.

‘What are you doing here?’ Eve asked.

‘I said, I would make you spaghetti, remember?’ She turned away from Eve. A plume of steam rising as she stirred something.

Eve’s eyes were drawn around the room, in addition to the fairy lights, there were at least twenty candles scattered around the place. Villanelle was cooking by candlelight making it hard for Eve to see the intricacies of what she was doing.

There was a large grocery bag set down in one of the dining room chairs. Villanelle had bought the ingredients with her. Eve tried to imagine Villanelle breaking in, climbing in through some window in that suit, with a grocery bag slung over her shoulder. 

‘Eve, where is your grater?’ Villanelle asked, calling her attention back to her. 

‘Corner cupboard.’ The answer was instinctive.

Villanelle was enjoying playing house. Eve complied, staying patient even as she grew more certain she was watching Villanelle cook her last meal. Eve regripped the knife, running her finger along the serrated edge, to find the point. 

After making up two bowls, Villanelle unwrapped an expensive-looking wedge of parmesan and grated it over the spaghetti. 

Her bare feet padding against the wood floors as she carried their bowls over. Then Villanelle doubled back to pull a bottle of wine - Eve knew wasn’t hers - out of the fridge along with two elegant crystal glasses from the bag.

Eve was still stretched out, taking up the whole couch and without pause, Villanelle swept her legs up and sat in the place of the pillows that had elevated her legs. She let them rest over her lap like a safety bar on a rollercoaster, making sure to cover Eve’s feet back up with the blanket before reaching for her bowl.

The warmth of Villanelle’s body quickly spread through the blanket. With the blade running along her femur. Eve hesitated. She didn’t want to strike. Curiosity coaxed her to play along, to see how far down this merry path Villanelle could last. Eve tucked the knife beneath her thigh, reaching for the bowl wobbling in her lap.

Looking down into the spaghetti, Eve realised, it was made from scratch. And it smelt incredible. The richness of the tomatoes. Their acidity was cut with the salt and the fat of the meat, was mouth-watering. How long had Eve slept, dead to world while Villanelle worked? A shiver ran down her spine. The knife felt like a plaything in her grasp. If Villanelle meant to kill her, if it was all that simple, Eve would already be dead. 

Unless, Eve considered, she meant to poison her. She looked over, Villanelle was already two forkfuls deep and winding her third, dispelling that theory.

‘Why are you here?’ Eve asked.

Villanelle shrugged. ‘I wanted to see you.’ Her words echoing the first night they’d meet. 

Eve didn’t fall for it, her anger sustaining her focus. ‘Don’t lie to me.’

‘I’m not. Are you going to eat?’ Villanelle gesture to Eve’s bowl, her lips glossy and red.

Eve shovelled in a mouthful and smiled sweetly at Villanelle with her cheeks full. Her expression faulted when she tasted it. It was incredible. 

_Of course, she could cook_ , Eve thought resentfully. She’d hoped that this would be something Villanelle floundered at just like Eve. 

‘And I wanted to ask you something,’ Villanelle revealed finally, eyes in her bowl.

Eve snorted. ‘Why on earth would I help you?’

Villanelle wasn’t fazed. Her eyes steady. ‘You will.’ 

Eve wasn’t sure if her words read more like a threat or blind confidence. Regardless, they annoyed her, gave rise to something she didn’t voice. Conversing in pleasantries was wearing thin for Eve. It enraged her that she was ignoring the elephant in the room, or more accurately the hole in her body, to keep Villanelle cordial. 

Eve didn’t have the patience to twirl. She skewed another mouthful on her folk. And said, her tone bragging, ‘I saw your handiwork.’

‘Hmm?’ Villanelle sounded, her brow wrinkling, a sting of pasta dangling from her lips. 

‘The woman in Rome,’ Eve clarified. She withheld Sofia's name; it wouldn’t surprise her if Villanelle had killed this woman without full knowledge of who she was. She wanted to hoard every ounce of knowledge she held over Villanelle. 

Surprising her, Villanelle’s eyes brightened. ‘You figured it out then?’

That threw Eve, and she found herself saying, as if in offering like a child called on in class who wanted to be spared for only knowing half the answer, ‘She was part of the Twelve.’

Villanelle waved a hand dismissively. ‘Well, of course, but the postcard,’ she prompted, waited then added, realising they weren’t on the same page, ‘Didn’t you wonder how I managed to find you in Rome?’

‘In the hospital?’ That was a pivot. What did Eve have to do with this woman? Then she considered Villanelle’s words, how had she found her in Rome? Eve’s condition would be enough to presume she would be in a hospital, but there was more than one in Rome and each with thousands of patients. She was used to Villanelle turning up, like it was her superpower, in the truth that had been the Twelve’s power, their knowledge. She was a free agent now. 

Reading the confusion on Eve’s face, Villanelle shook her head in disappointment. ‘Tsk tsk.’

And like that, the two seemingly diverging points connected, patching a loophole. ‘She was after me,’ Eve breathed.

She nodded then clarified, ‘She was after me too. I don’t think the Twelve are very happy about Raymond.’

‘I can’t help you with that.’

‘You are not safe either. But that’s not what I want. Tell me, where is Konstantin?’

It wasn’t the request Eve was expecting. ‘Why? So, you can run away again?’

Villanelle’s nostrils flared. ‘Unlike you, I am not content with returning to the way things were. Konstantin knows more then he’s saying about the Twelve, I am certain of it.’

‘Unlike me?’ Eve repeated in disbelief. Her hand slipped back beneath the covers, forming a clenching fist around the knife. 

Villanelle regarded her with a look of pity and disapproval. ‘Aren’t you working with Carolyn again? Letting Niko move back in? Pretending you’re in control?’ 

‘You don’t know me,’ Eve snarled through gritted teeth and shoved the knifepoint into the soft space between Villanelle’s ribs. 

In a surprise that didn’t cross over into alarm, Villanelle lifted her arms above her head, still cradling her bowl, to spot the blade in Eve’s hand poking out from the edge of the blanket and pressing into her blazer. She looked almost amused and resumed eating.

‘There is no going back. If you think there is, you’re lying to yourself,’ Villanelle said simply.

Eve leant forward, grimacing as the stitches protested, but digging the knife in. She felt the anger in her chest begging to climb out of her, clawing its way up her throat. ‘I am the one out of control? You don’t know what you want! You don’t know who you are. You have nothing. No one. Even Konstantin left you.’

Villanelle’s mouth twitched. Her neck muscles strained as her voice intensified, ‘I don’t need anyone; I live for myself. You are so convinced you have a duty to these people. To this person, everyone thinks you are. Don’t you wonder what you could accomplish if you just let go.’ She sat up, shifting their bowls aside as she snaked her way closer to Eve, daring her to hold the knife steady as she closed in. 

Eve’s elbow tucked in, giving Villanelle what she wanted but her words were steady in their resolve. ‘You have got me wrong at every turn. Paris. Rome.’

Villanelle didn't speak. She took hold of Eve’s hand and moved the knife to pierce the thin fabric of her shirt. With her blazer no longer padding its point, she leant in closer, her body prowling over Eve’s. Her face twitching a little as the knife bit into her flesh.

Eve leant away as if she could scuttle away but it only left her laying prone as Villanelle’s form hovered above her. Villanelle’s hair, styled straight, fell over Eve like a curtain. 

Eve kept the knife between them, attempting to break the intimacy of the moment. Eve threw her words like stones to keep her at bay. ‘You thought I would ride off into the sunset with you.’

‘Wouldn’t you have?’ Villanelle’s eyes twinkled, taking in Eve beneath her. Villanelle went so still. The implication of her words hanging there, daring Eve to hurt her. The smile on her face said, _tell me I am wrong._

Yes, Eve would have. Past tense. She was all in, burning the world down alongside Villanelle until she realised, she’d been betrayed. She has been used by the person she was burning it all for. 

‘Only because I thought you were someone else,’ Eve answered, flustered, trying to figure out how she had got on the back foot in this conversation. 

‘And what was that?’ Villanelle smirked.

The answer was automatic. ‘Kind. Misunderstood. Something I could control.’

‘That’s it, isn’t it? Control?’ Her smirked dropped, her eyes narrowed. ‘I suppose it has always been that with you. It’s not about me, is it? It’s about keeping yourself in check. Do you think other people have to do that? Go around making sure they are good?’ Villanelle reached up, eyeing a curl that framed Eve’s cheekbone. As she swept the lock away it tickled Eve. 

‘You think I enjoyed killing him?’ Eve spat back. Her hand wobbled on the knife and her body jerked, reliving the moment the axe wedged into Raymond’s neck, the wet abrupt smack, the bloody air bubbles, the light in his eyes receding. 

Villanelle analysed Eve’s face. ‘I don’t think you feel as bad as you think you would about it. And that tortures you.’

‘Do you feel bad about Gemma?’ Eve challenged, desperate to change the focus.

Villanelle shrugged. ‘She was very annoying.’

‘So, that’s a “no” then?’

Villanelle rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘Don't act like you cried for her. Niko on the other hand, it would have been like Bill all over again. And you can only miss my internal organs so many times.’

Eve had forgotten about the knife until Bill’s name was uttered, and it was like she woke from a siren’s spell. She twisted it. ‘You set him up.’ 

Villanelle flinched back, they both watched blood spread, thread by thread. When she spoke, Villanelle was confused, ‘Come again?’

‘You set Niko up.’

‘No. I didn’t.’ Her face twisted deeper into confusion like Eve was crazy.

‘You locked him in there with her body!’ Eve was growing desperate, her voice climbing the more Villanelle denied it.

‘No. Well, I did but not like that. We were going to Rome. I didn’t want him to call you. Then you would have to stay and take care of him, ugh, pretend that you cared. I did you a favour.’ 

Eve didn’t know how to accept that. It seemed perfectly Villanelle, petty and vindictive, to set up Niko. But despite even herself, Eve believed her. Villanelle wouldn’t pass up the credit and her plan in Rome was for them to run away together, that didn’t need Niko behind bars. It needed him scared and for Eve to feel alone, not motivated to save him. Then again how could she write off this shit storm as some result of Villanelle’s indifference toward Niko?

‘Why?’ Eve demanded. 

‘If he loved her instead of you. I would have let them go,’ Villanelle said as if the chance of her mercy meant anything. 

It took a moment for Villanelle's words to process. Niko still loved her. He chose her. It was like Eve could catch her breath again, had caught hold of a buoy in a thrashing ocean. 

‘People don’t work like that,’ Eve replied, her voice was weaker than she expected. Her eyes were tearing up as she looked back at Villanelle. It was too true, it was the beating heart of her predicament, love can’t be controlled, it can’t just be turned off.

Villanelle didn’t understand the tears brimming in Eve’s eyes. ‘He could have been happy with her,’ she mused like it was a kindness to allow him to live at all.

Eve went quiet. She’d thought the same thing, Gemma could give Niko the kind of life Eve had tricked them both into believing they could have together, a lifetime of missionary and unforgotten anniversaries. 

The deadbolt on the front door shifted, the sound was like a gunshot. Villanelle still lay over Eve, the veins in her forearms popping as she held her weight. Forgetting about the knife that measured the space between their bodies, Eve shoved on Villanelle’s chest. It was a plead, aware she didn’t have the strength to move Villanelle if she didn’t wish to. 

Villanelle yielded, a fraction, returning to sit on the edge of the couch, setting Eve’s feet back in her lap. She had just picked up her bowl to resume eating when Niko rounded the corner.

And that’s what Niko walked into, Eve on the couch looking astronomically guilty with Villanelle tucked beneath her legs.

He froze. His brain failing to process the scene, the threat hadn’t entered with a bang but with a homecooked meal. In the face of such absurdity, his lips parted to speak but nothing came out.

Villanelle gestured to the spread in the kitchen. ‘I made enough for you. Eve and I were just having a chat.’

He looked at Villanelle, his expression ineffable, then pivoted to target Eve with his beady eyes. ‘What is going on?’ His tone was restrained. He wanted to yell. Eve could tell he wanted to attack Villanelle, but the twinkling lights and the smell of pasta had disarmed him.

‘It’s OK, Niko.’ It was definitely not okay. Niko doing anything rash wasn’t going to make things better. She turned on Villanelle, keeping the knife out of view, she pressed it against Villanelle’s thigh, to back up her words. ‘You won’t hurt him, will you?’

Villanelle was working on another mouthful and spoke around it, ‘Not if you tell me what I want to know.’

‘It’s OK. It’s okay?’ Niko barked. ‘There is a murderer in our living room. Who, might I add, shot _you_.’

‘Niko, don’t be rude. Sit. Eat,’ Villanelle said, languid and unfeeling, she stretched her arms along the length of the couch. If anything, she was enjoying this. 

He looked to Eve. She tried to make her face reassuring, to make it look like she had this. ‘What do you want with Konstantin?’ She asked turning the conversation back to Konstantin.

‘To talk, mostly. He chose his family over me. Can you believe that? I am so much cuter than them.’ She crossed her arms over her chest. Eve sensed real discontent behind her comment.

‘That’s what you do for family,’ Niko pipped up. He’d gotten a serving and taken the furthest seat from them. 

Quietly and through gritted teeth, Villanelle muttered, ‘Why does everybody keep saying that?’

‘Niko,’ Eve warned.

Villanelle rounded back on Eve. ‘Where is he?'

'I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘But I can find out.' She wasn’t at all sure she could. 

'Good. Thank you, that wasn’t so hard.' Villanelle smiled letting her head fall back into the cushion, looking smug.

She twisted the knife. Villanelle sat up, her expression indigent. 

With her attention, Eve spoke, her words clear. ‘I'll tell you if you get rid of Gemma's body.’

'Hmm?' It was a snort and a laugh. 

'She still in that storage unit. And I can’t really help.' Eve gestured to herself.

Villanelle leant into Eve’s space again. ‘I don’t do my own dirty work, Eve.’

She held the knife steady, it bit through the threading of Villanelle’s pants until Villanelle stopped her advance. ‘If you want to know where Konstantin is, you will.’

‘Are you threatening me?’ Villanelle’s eyes narrowed, a smile playing on her lips.

Eve straightened up, injecting unfounded confidence into her voice, ‘I’m making a deal.’

Villanelle considered it. ‘So, I get rid of this body for you and you give me Konstantin. Okay.’ Her face settled into a smile, amused by something. She pointed to Niko. ‘But he helps.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna try and keep a better pace going on this. I'm hoping to get a lot of it out before season 3 starts and blows all these ponderings and ideas out the water.
> 
> Thanks for reading xx


	6. Gravediggers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niko and Villanelle begrudgingly team up to cover up a crime.

**EVE - LONDON**

Eve was expecting Villanelle’s knowledge of body disposal to be vast. It fit the whole vibe of her skill set. However, it wasn’t a part of her job description. The kind of people she killed couldn’t drop off the face of the earth like a lone hitchhiker. In her line of work, a body was a full stop. A fulfilled contract, proof to the Twelve that the deed was done and done well. Besides that, it had never interested Villanelle, she had a pathological need for people to see her work, namely Eve.

They combined their knowledge from opposing sides of the law and ran through their options. Chemicals were out, they would probably get arrested while acquiring enough to destroy a body’s worth of biological material. That was for planned homicide. 

Burning the body had its hurdles too. It isn’t as easy as tossing a corpse onto a bonfire and letting it chargrill, it needs to be incinerated. Keeping a fire that hot, for long enough to reduce the body to ash and inorganic material in the suburbs of London would be impossible. 

After a short back and forth they were left with one option; Gemma was going to have to disappear down a deep hole. 

From the dining room table, Niko watched their little meeting, angrily pushing his spaghetti from side to side in his bowl. He had never seen them interact before, he was fascinated and appalled at the same time. There was an ease, a shorthand, he couldn’t follow. But what he found most disturbing was the excitement in Eve’s voice, as if they were cracking a puzzle rather than plotting a crime. 

‘It probably won’t be open,’ he said, picking at his food. His bitter tone cutting through their bubble. They looked over confused. ‘The storage place,’ he clarified.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ Villanelle said, getting to her feet.

 _Great. Another crime_ , Niko thought.

Under her breath just for Villanelle, Eve said, ‘You bring him back.’

‘Of course.’ Then in a few strides, Villanelle shot across the room. Niko flinched as she patted his shoulder, ‘Come on, partner.’

Villanelle traded her suit jacket for Eve’s coat as Niko put back on the layers he had just discarded. Eve watched Villanelle eye him. Her eyes were stilled, blackened, like a shark’s.

‘Wow,’ Villanelle said as he was pulling on his overcoat. 

He turned back to look at her. Villanelle was crouched tying up her boots, but her eyes were on him, her mouth a smirk. ‘I didn’t realise there were that many shades of brown.’

Niko regarded himself, his brown overcoat, brown plaid shirt and slacks. He cast a pleading glance at Eve. 

They were going to kill each other.

**VILLANELLE – LONDON**

Villanelle whistled when she saw it, the hulking four-wheel-drive mounting the curb of Eve's house.

‘This is yours?’ she asked, her tone impressed.

Niko's response was clipped. ‘I borrowed it.’

She rushed up to it. ‘Can I drive?’

He didn’t answer and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Pulling a face after him, she scooted into the backseat, stretching out on the row of seats. 

As he drove, Niko took every chance he could to glare at her in the rear-view mirror. When he was watching the road, she poked out next to him, craning over the glove box, not seat belted in. ‘What’s wrong?’

He didn’t answer. She didn’t move, bobbing next to him as he sped through the dark streets. 

Through thin lips, he answered, ‘Just struggling to reconcile the lunacy of you helping me cover up _your_ murder.’

She smiled wide. ‘Funny. I’m still trying to reconcile what Eve sees in you.’

He turned on her. ‘Did you break into my house and mix up my CDs?’

‘Watch the road!’ Villanelle yelled, pointing ahead of them. 

Niko spun around, his haste causing him to swerve a little as he righted the car. Then he took in the empty stretch of street in front of them. His shoulders pinched together and he crowded over the wheel still on high alert.

With Niko deterred, Villanelle sank into the backseat and out of view. The hood of Eve’s coat fell over her eyes. 

It was a hideous coat. A dull swampy green with a faux fur interior. She watched the road through the tendrils of fluff. It smelt like Eve though, Villanelle pulled it around herself a little tighter. 

****

The lights of the storage facility were on. The car park was empty. Niko parked as close to the main entrance as he could manage.

Villanelle pushed ahead, hopping out and trying the door to the large tin shed. It creaked open revealing a hall of storage rooms illuminated by fluorescent lighting. There was, what looked like an office, to the left of the entrance. She peered in on her way to the locker, it was empty. 

Niko sped up to keep pace. Miraculously, they were pulling this off. Then they smelt it. A stench concentrated in the hallway. They shared a look. 

Villanelle motioned Niko onwards to the roller door of his locker. Niko retrieved a ring of keys from his pocket. With Villanelle impatiently watching, he fumbled trying a few of similar cut and colour. The third key he tried slid in and clicked. The crackling and shifting of the metal door echoed through the hall. He took it slow dreading what was inside.

With the room unsealed the smell intensified. Villanelle reasoned; it wasn’t too bad considering the time Gemma had been left here. Any passers-by wouldn’t be confronted with the truth, welcome to write it off as a dead rat. Or maybe a family of dead rats.

Niko paused in the entrance, looking at the dried bloodstains on the floor, his dried blood. Villanelle pushed past him, crushing fragments of broken knickknacks beneath her feet, sending a disembodied head skittered across the concrete. 

She found it immediately. There was only one piece of furniture in this archive of Niko’s bachelordom large enough to house a body, an opulent chest, its dark stained wood carved with intricate repeating patterns. Beside it was a mound of papers, photo albums - the chest original contents dumped in a hurry.

Niko watched Villanelle retrieve a pair of gloves from Eve’s pocket, pulling them on before she flicked the latch. It was locked. Probably for the best. 

Without a word, they each took aside. Villanelle tested the ancient handle on her side before looked across at Niko. ‘Reckon you can make it all the way?’ She challenged.

‘Childish,’ Niko said under his breath heaving the trunk off the ground. 

They waddled it forward. The heavy load shortened their steps. Halfway down the corridor Niko’s face reddened, and veins popped from his forehead, but he refused to stop. Villanelle was unfazed, increasing her pace to try to break him. 

Despite her efforts, they made it to the parking lot. Villanelle let him rest before they hoisted it into the back. Then she climbed in to tie it down. 

Niko doubled back to lock up the storage unit. Free of Villanelle’s gaze his face slackened, crumbled.

It would have been so easy to give in then. He wanted nothing more than to be caught. For Gemma to be buried with honour and for Villanelle to be put to justice. Already he felt the weight of this lie. It would crush him. It was like he would be hauling the weight of that trunk, her dead body for the rest of his life.

He knew he could be the one to do it, to call this all off. But standing in the crosshairs of Villanelle and him was Eve. He remembered the shine in her eyes, at the idea of outsmarting justice, burying the truth. She didn’t feel this the way he did. They didn’t stand on the same side of this. He would lose her. A week ago, he would have welcomed that.

Now as he stood in the mouth of his storage unit, the smell lingering, tainting this room full of his memories. Memories from a certain period of his life before he met Eve. Before they had consolidated their lives into one. Looking them over, he realised they didn’t feel like his anymore. It was a room full of junk Niko had happily given up for Eve.

He found himself wondering what else he would give up for her. What else he would do? What were the limits of his love?

And he did love her. It just wasn’t the same, loving her had become painful.

But as if they were still lovesick and crazy about each other, Niko didn’t long for the life this room represented, he only longed for Eve. His Eve. A bubbly, clumsy mess whose slight predilection for the macabre was harmless, and even a little sexy.

Despite how conflicted he was about his feelings; he’d committed to her; they had made one to each other. If there was any chance of getting that Eve back, he would fight for her.

He pulled the door down, with a finality, trying to own his decision, to lock that life behind him for good and prepared himself to carry this burden for as long as Eve needed him to.

Aware Villanelle’s patience would be wearing thin, he made haste back to the truck. In the corridor, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure.

‘Hey, it’s you,’ the figure proclaimed, loud and boisterous like they were old friends. Niko looked back, poking out of the office was the owner, the one who had come to his aid. He was a barrel of a man, wearing a tank top under an open flannel shirt immune to the abhorrent chill. His facial hair sprouting in all different directions. 

Not wanting to stop and chat, he slowed but kept walking, giving a small, ‘Hey.’

The man followed, falling into pace with him as Niko emerged into the parking lot. ‘Who is this?’ he gestured to Villanelle’s figure, tying the chest down in the back of the truck. Thankfully, her hood was up, no blonde locks spilling free.

At the sound of a stranger’s voice, Villanelle bristled, like a spooked cat. 

Dreading what Villanelle might do to this man if she felt threatened, he reached for a lie. He couldn’t decide what rose the least suspicion, his voice broke as he spoke, ‘Ah. My wife. We decided to give it another chance, move some of my things back in.’ Horrible. 

The man nodded though his eyes regarded Villanelle’s silhouette sceptically. Sensing this Villanelle retreated to the backseat again, leaving Niko on his own.

The man stuck out his hand and when Niko took it, he closed the distance, pulling Niko close, ‘You deserve better, mate.’ The man eyed the healing bruise around his eye.

‘It not like that.’ Yeah, it wasn’t like that at all. That was a murdering psychopath, not his wife. Niko patted the edge of his eye and tried to take his hand back.

The man seemed unconvinced, making Niko meet his eyes as if swearing him to a promise. ‘If you need help. You let me know.’

‘Come on,’ Villanelle called from the car in a perfect British accent, honking the horn from the backseat.

‘Thanks for all your help,’ Niko said, managing to disengage their handshake.

****

‘Keep going,’ Villanelle ordered as they pushed deeper into the dark winding roads. The high beams on the truck illuminated the trees caging in the road. 

The roads were empty and unfamiliar. They had been driving so long Niko had lost his sense of direction.

‘Where-,’ Niko attempted to ask but was cut off.

‘Keep going,’ Villanelle insisted, not entertaining his inquiries.

They drove for another thirty minutes. The trees seemed to get taller, the darkness thicker, until finally, she motioned for him to pull off the road onto a narrow dirt path that steered into the forest.

The trail narrowed till the truck could go no further. Niko let the car idle before turned back to Villanelle, ‘What now?’

But she was already out the door going to untie the box.

Together they carried it until the car was out of sight. They took it slower this time, keeping their torches trained on the ground, as their other hand grappled the handle. They put it down in a slight break in the trees.

To avoid roots, Villanelle marked out an appropriate gravesite in the middle of their little area. Which she lit with their torches to free up their hands. With the prep work done, they reconvened at the chest.

Niko reluctantly fished out the key. It was old. Brass maybe. Ornate in the same language as the trunk. A mechanism inside groaned as he turned the key then the latch relaxed. Niko stumbled back. He didn’t want to open it.

Villanelle sighed, stepping forward, flicking the latch and throwing back the lid. The force of it tipped the trunk, causing the contents to rock then resettled.

A potent smell erupted. It knocked them both back a step. Villanelle covered her nose and peered in. The body was wrapped in plastic, cocooned in the foetal position.

Villanelle noticed Niko had removed the plastic bag from her head and rewrapped her in that couch protector.

Niko looked away.

Villanelle’s nose wrinkled from the smell, but she didn’t look away. Through the plastic, fogged-up with condensation and trapped gases, she saw her. Gemma was shrivelled, expired, marinating in her own juices. It was objectivity disgusting, but it didn’t strike a chord with Villanelle.

There was just morbid curiosity. Villanelle undid the rough tapping, the plastic unfurled, presenting Gemma. Her mouth was open in the same suffocated ‘o’. Her horrified eyes had paled and began to decompose. Her skin was waxy taking on a greying green, it looked wet to the touch, think chicken skin on an uncooked drumstick.

Villanelle felt little making eye contact with death. Except maybe distaste. It was unflattering.

Unlike Niko, as she looked down into the makeshift coffin, she wasn’t confronted with her mortality. She felt no common humanity in death. Villanelle had never thought of her death as a tragedy. To her death was a failure.

****

It took them three hours to dig the hole. In that time the added layer of Eve’s jacket felt superficial when despite the gloves, her hands started to go numb.

‘I think that’s good enough,’ she said, pulled herself out of the hole and skewering her shovel in the mound of dirt they had shifted, in finality.

Niko collapsed into the dirt wall to catch his breath.

‘Coming?’ Villanelle prompted, as she paused on her way to the trunk.

He tossed his shovel up ungracefully and clambered after it, pulling a few spadefuls of dirt back in.

For the first time, Niko took Gemma in. The crusted plastic presenting her like Venus in that clamshell. Her eyes stared through him, clouded and distant.

He felt the weight of her empty stare. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, using his fingertips to pull down her lids. They didn’t stay closed.

Villanelle sighed impatiently. He was out of time for goodbyes.

They rewrapped her in the plastic. It made a better handle than her decomposing limbs.

She wasn’t very heavy. It seems much of the weight they had been carrying belonged to the large wooden chest. The true test came when they reached the edge of the hole. They hadn’t discussed how to lower her in.

Niko took the lead. 'Gentle,’ he instructed. He lowered himself into a squat, swinging the weight away from his body over the edge to lower it down slowly.

Villanelle rolled her eyes and dropping her end. ‘Whoops.’

Gemma’s literal dead weight slid from the plastic sheet Niko still held. The body clattered into the hole awkwardly.

Villanelle peered into the pit, Gemma’s face stared back while her limbs resembled a ragdoll’s, bending and protesting the constraints of the narrow hole. 

'Do you have no respect, no remorse?’ Niko spat at her, dropping the plastic, he got to his feet.

Villanelle could see it, something in him snapped. The last shred of decency and politeness that kept him from lashing out.

'She literally can’t feel anything,’ Villanelle said nonchalantly.

He plucked Villanelle’s shovel out of the ground and swung it at her, wild and off-balance. Still regarding him with bemused curiosity, Villanelle sidestepped the looping strike and entered in on him as his body torqued away from her, complying with the inertia of the shovel. She took a hold of its handle, controlling the "weapon". Then bumped him, a simple shoulder check to his ribs and stomach.

The wind shot out of his lungs, sending him staggering back, he relinquished the shovel and kept wheeling backwards until the ground runout beneath him and he fell.

He let out a holler of fear as he dropped those six feet, then there was the crack of brittle bones and the crinkle of plastic.

He’d landed right on top of Gemma, in missionary. On impact, Gemma’s last breath hissed out between her teeth, gaseous and vile. The urge, no, the need to vomit rose inside Niko and overcame him. He scampered away from Gemma’s clouded and distant eyes, emptying his stomach as he clutched an ankle to hold himself up.

The earth drank in his biol, leaving the few mouthfuls of spaghetti he’d been able to swallow, like yellow worms on the rich cold earth.

‘Jesus, are you okay?’ Her voice was sweet as it travelled down the pit. She nearly sounded genuine.

He looked up at her, at the wicked smile on her face. Her eyes don’t even gleam, they were one with the darkness of the forest. Two black pits staring back.

She’d picked up the shovel, its tip hovered above his head, steady in her hands. He backed up from the edge, certain she was going to strike. He looked about him. He was trapped, a fly caught in her web. A critter stumbling across the funnel-web spider’s nest. And he’d delivered himself.

It was a sinking feeling. That realisation. A deflated sigh from the universe that said, you really should have known better.

Then Villanelle skewered the metal tip into the ground beside her and backed up a step.

The loose earth caved in as he fought to pull himself out. The greedy mouth of the earth trying to swallow him too. Eventually, he managed it. The damp earth caked his pants and its moisture bleed through to his flesh, he shivered, still on his knees as the moonlight and torchlights disappeared.

Villanelle loomed over him. Her accent growing more potent with the venom she injected into her voice. ‘Look, I’m not thrilled about this either. I would prefer for you to be in that hole with big tits.’ She took a beat, gathered herself. A shovel dropped in front of him, he flinched. ‘Start shovelling. I wanna go to bed.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my google history is a mess after writing this one.
> 
> hope y'all are staying safe


	7. Fragile Partnerships

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot happens. Villanelle and Eve try to reach an understanding.

**VILLANELLE – LONDON**

As their final act of partnership, Niko and Villanelle carried the now-empty trunk inside, down the hall past the kitchen to be dealt with later. Villanelle was ready for her part to be over. Her clothes were ruined.

Unceremoniously Niko sighed and ripped off his muddy boots before ascending the stairs, not throwing Villanelle a second glance. 

If Niko was alarmed by Villanelle lingering in the hallway, he didn’t show it. 

She’d broken him and she was taking plenty of glee in of it. 

‘I’ll be up to tuck you in a minute,’ she called after him.

Behind him, the bathroom door slammed shut, the pipes coming to life through the walls.

The sound caused Eve to stir. She was where they’d left her, curled up on the couch. The television was on, sending light dancing across her face, the sound a whisper.

‘It’s done,’ Villanelle said, re-hanging Eve’s coat and crossing the room to her.

Eve was blinking back sleep and pulling herself upright when she opened her eyes to find Villanelle leaning over her. She froze. Their breath mingled.

Villanelle couldn’t help but smile, feeling Eve’s eyes tracing her lips, distracted while her hand slide down between the cushions of the couch to retrieve that pesky knife.

Smugly, Villanelle pulled away, waggling the knife at Eve as she drifted into the kitchen. ‘We don’t want you hurting yourself or others, now do we?’

Eve’s heart sank watching her upper hand be dumped in the sink, out of her reach. But who was she kidding she wasn’t going to be able to kill Villanelle; only hours earlier they had made a deal that entangled their fates further. It had made her feel a little safer though.

Eve had always believed she was an exception for Villanelle but with the evidence of what she was truly capable on her body, it was hard to take solace in the wisps of affection displayed. She tried to see Villanelle for the unpredictable violent force she was.

‘Don’t look so gloomy,’ Villanelle said as she loaded a bowl full of cold spaghetti. ‘The way I see it, the Twelve are after us both. Sure, we could go it alone, really not that bad of a deal for me, or we could help each other get out of this alive.’

‘How?’

Villanelle was surprised by Eve's lack of argument. ‘We share information. You from inside the system and me from outside of it. I can protect you. You can tell me what I need to know.’ She shrugged as if she was indifferent to Eve’s response, loading her bowl into the microwave. ‘I don’t have the Twelve to do my digging or Konstantin for that matter.’

‘Are you trying to pick me up as your handler?’ Exhausted Eve rolled her head to look at her and cocked an eyebrow.

‘Partner. You need me,’ Villanelle insisted.

A partnership? This sounded an awful lot like a truce. Eve hadn’t expected that. Eve saw the note of desperation in Villanelle voice and picked at it. ‘What power do you even have without the Twelve?’

‘Don’t insult me, Eve.’ Villanelle bared her teeth.

‘ _You_ need _me_ ,’ Eve affirmed.

Villanelle didn’t refute it. She tried to stay resolute as her proposal hung there. Villanelle had already decided. She’d chosen Eve, she couldn’t walk that back. ‘You’re right.’

‘Okay,’ Eve answered simply, agreeing.

The microwave dinged.

Neither of them knew what a truce would look like, what that even meant. But for that moment it was enough. It eased the constant tension between them.

They were together in a new understanding, in the aftermath of their attempts to hurt the other, each scarred. But they were just warning shots. The violence of the actions they had taken against each other reverberated in the silence between them. And it confirmed one thing, that they each couldn’t and wouldn’t kill the other.

‘Are you sleeping down here?’ Villanelle asked, padding back over steaming bowl in hand and gesturing to the three blanket Eve had piled over herself.

‘I can’t get up the stairs,’ Eve answered sharply.

Villanelle laughed.

'You find this all so funny, don’t you?’

‘Come on, it’s like a sitcom, a husband and wife on the verge of a divorce covering up a murder together.’ She took her seat at Eve’s feet. 'He is not happy. He doesn’t have the stomach for this. You know he didn’t say a single thing to me the whole way back. Very rude.’

Eve let her hand fall over her eyes. ‘It’s almost like it’s all your fault or something.’

Villanelle shrugged. ‘She was annoying.’

‘Yeah, she was.’ Eve let her eyes flutter closed.

'You’re not mad?’ Villanelle’s voice peaked in surprise.

‘I am always mad.’ She rolled her head to look at Villanelle, peering out at her. 'How safe are we?’

Villanelle shrugged. ‘No body equals no murder. If Niko can act innocent, no suspicion either. It won’t touch you. You’re welcome.’

‘I’m not going to thank you,’ Eve said rolling her head back under the cover of her arm.

She heard Villanelle snort then resume eating. They sat together in that almost cosy silence as Villanelle ate, which didn’t take her long.

Villanelle pulled a little strip of paper from her blazer and placed it on Eve’s knee. ‘My number. Well, a burner. Send Konstantin’s location to that.’

Eve opened her eyes, pick up the scrap, read it. Villanelle had signed it off with two kisses. She played with the paper as she asked, ‘Are you going to kill him?’

Villanelle shrugged both disinterested and without an answer.

Eve frowned 'He came back to save you. He didn’t even have to do that. Carolyn has a way of giving you no other choice but to do her will.’

'You are defending Konstantin?’ Villanelle asked, the fairy lights catching her teeth as she smiled.

‘I don’t want his blood on my hands too.’ It was the truth. Clear and resolute.

‘Beg me,’ Villanelle said. She pursed her lips, waiting for Eve to snap at her.

Instead, Eve took Villanelle’s hand and dragged it into her lap. Her brown eyes dragging in Villanelle’s green ones. ‘Don’t hurt his family. Don’t hurt him.’

Villanelle looked down at their fingers entangled and cradled in Eve’s laps. She was yet to find a thing she wouldn’t do for Eve, and as it turned out, not do. Wanting to keep how much power Eve really had over her a secret, Villanelle said, ‘I’ll think about it.’

Villanelle couldn’t keep from squeezing Eve’s hand just as she let go shuffling back into the mould she had made in the couch. The small movement caused a bolt of pain, like Eve’s wounds had been slit open again, to charge through her.

Villanelle saw her wince and asked, ‘When did you last change your bandages?’

Niko was meant to help her when he got home from work. However, their evening hadn’t gone to plan. ‘It’s fine,’ Eve insisted, trying to sit up instead.

Villanelle cocked an eyebrow. ‘When?’

‘This morning.’ Elena had helped her with the one on her back. The wound on her stomach, she could manage on her own. The medical supplies were buried amongst the growing tower of junk on the coffee table.

Villanelle grinned. ‘I can’t let my new partner die from an infection.’

Eve groaned.

Villanelle pushed out her lips, pouting. ‘Please, Eve.’

Eve thought for a moment. An infection would only extend the misery of being bedridden. Finally, she conceded, ‘Just my back.’

Eve sat up fully and shuffled forward, so there was room for Villanelle to sit behind her. Eve’s hamstrings protested to the slouched position as much as her wounds. Without further invitation Villanelle was behind her. Her legs sliding in on either side of Eve like they were two carriages of a sad massage train.

From behind her, Villanelle mused, ‘I should have brought my nurse costume.’

Eve didn’t grace that with an answer.

Warm hands slide beneath Eve’s shirt, rolling it up slowly until they could pick at the edges of the gauze wrapping. The touch was softer than expected. Deliberate and delicate and efficient. It sent a shiver up Eve’s spine.

The irony wasn’t lost on Eve as the hands of death applied themselves to healing her.

She felt Villanelle’s long fingers lift an edge and pulled, the tight seal made a ripping sound as it released Eve’s flesh.

Villanelle peered at the wound in fascination. The stitches had trapped all manner of fluid as they oozed from the bullet wound, which had crusted to Eve’s skin, obscuring the wound. Gently, Villanelle cleaned it. Eve’s back muscles jumped with every dab of the alcohol wipe. Once it was clean Villanelle examined the damage. Her long fingers traced the bounds of the raw flesh.

A silence hung between them as Villanelle confronted her work. Eve wished she could see her face. She needed to know what emotion graced her features, unburdened by Eve’s gaze. Was it delighted or were her eyes filled with regret?

Villanelle struggled to examine how it made her feel.

In the ruins, with the gun in her hand, it felt like the right thing to do. Justified, even. To wound Eve, to stop her, because Villanelle was hurting, and she knew she would never be able to walk away from that. If she couldn’t hurt Eve’s heart too, she would hurt her body.

But in the few days that separated her from that moment, she’d lost her conviction. It was hard to own that decision when Eve sat before her.

This might not have been the future Villanelle had hoped for. It fell shy of Alaska but was worlds ahead of the nothingness she had envisioned, that had flashed before her as Eve turned away. She'd foresaw only one way of being together and Eve walking away had ruined that. Villanelle had never imagined being in her presence again, feeling Eve’s anger diluting as they spoke. It was more than she deserved, and she knew it.

Villanelle’s heartbreak was healing while Eve was forced to limp along at the pace of her flesh.

The air was empty around them, waiting. Eve felt it too, a shift, of what vein she couldn’t tell. Villanelle recognised it as an opening, the moment to apologise. Instead, she pressed her lips to Eve’s shoulder, shying away from the words. Saying “I’m sorry” denoted a ritual of shame and repentance, they both knew Villanelle wasn’t capable of. Even if she would take it back in a heartbeat.

As if sensing Villanelle’s train of thought Eve prompted, ‘Why did you do it?’ 

Silence.

Eve wanted to swivel, to confront Villanelle. The words awakened Villanelle, her hands returning to their task.

‘Why did you leave me to die?’ Eve demanded.

One of the stitches shifted as she cleaned. Eve winced. ‘I've tried to kill you. Multiple times. I couldn’t,’ Villanelle said as though it explained everything.

‘Is that meant to make you feel better?’

‘A little. Yes.’

Eve waited.

She couldn’t see Villanelle’s forehead wrinkle in hesitation, but she imagined it, felt it. Felt Villanelle fighting for the truth, untangling it from the pathological lies, isolating the answer and put it into words. Even though she knew the answer couldn’t satisfy Eve.

‘I felt so many things in that moment. I can’t pick them all apart from one another,’ Villanelle finally said.

Eve recognised that instability in the tenner of her voice, she’d glimpsed it so few times but had memorised it, what it meant, honesty. It made Eve patient.

Villanelle reached out, grabbing the gauze and wrappings. ‘I was so angry. I needed you to hurt,’ as she spoke, she wipes the wound again and sealed it up beneath the bandage. She didn’t need Eve to prompt her, forcing herself to continue. ‘I was alone, foolish and empty all in the same moment. I wanted to punish you but … I could not kill you. I let you go. You chose this life the moment you walked away from me, this suffering, shame, boredom.’ Villanelle believed if she could just get Eve to let go of these links, these fictions of her former life, Eve would be free to live just like her.

‘You let me go? Are you crazy?’ This time Eve did turn, shoving at Villanelle's chest. It was petty and barely rocked her. But Eve's couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Villanelle caught one of her hands, trying to repeat Eve’s gesture earlier, entangling their fingers. ‘You think this is your place, your home when this life has rejected you so many times. You don’t owe them anything Eve. They left you, Niko, Carolyn. I chose you; I came back.’

‘You manipulated me.’ Eve ripped her hand from Villanelle’s.

And there it was. The hard-line drawn between them. Villanelle’s hand snaked back into her own lap.

Looking into her eyes, Eve realised Villanelle didn’t even understand what she had done wrong. She saw only the physical damage, the wound in Eve’s side, forgivable like the wound in hers, she didn’t see the blood on Eve’s hands. She didn’t see the way that tainted Eve’s soul. That making her kill Raymond was more lasting than any scar, it shook Eve’s fundamental understanding of herself. And that the only way she could digest it was to blame Villanelle.

For the first time, Villanelle considered it was about more than the bullet, she nearly glimpsed the full picture. ‘I thought it was what you wanted.’ It was a plead for mercy maybe for forgiveness.

‘To kill someone? To ruin my life?’ The anger in Eve’s voice curling her words.

‘Alaska. Spaghetti… Me.’ Villanelle saw the anger in Eve’s eyes and reached to soothe her. ‘I wasn’t lying when I said I loved you. I needed to know you felt the same.’

Eve flinched back; Villanelle’s hand fell. ‘And I could only have love you if I killed for you if I abandoned my whole life for you? Burned down my whole world for you?’ She laughed. ‘You really don’t know what love is.’

Eve’s words were dismissive, she broke eye contact and scooted away.

Villanelle’s upper lip twitched. There it was again. A chill. A loneliness. It settled in as Eve looked away. Villanelle couldn’t bear to be there anymore and without another word she left.

It didn’t matter how far she got, it followed her, that loneliness. Villanelle was warmed only by the anger in her heart.

**EVE – LONDON**

Eve woke to Niko sneaking around in the kitchen, this seemed to be their new routine.

He didn’t notice her at first. His eyes glassy and skewering the trunk, where it had been dumped in the hallway. He took a thoughtful sip of coffee. His jaw knotted. He held it in his mouth a moment then swallowed hard like he was swallowing around a lump in his throat. His chin crinkled. He didn’t make a sound, but a tear slipped from the welling cornering of his eye.

He caught it, wiping it away. He sniffled, trying to drag it all back inside. The pain. The hurt. The grief.

Eve lay back. She didn’t want him to see her. She knew he’d feel her eyes as a judgment. She was no longer a confidant.

Eve felt her eyes tearig up.

Death. Real in your face undeniable death, changes people. How could it not? To be in the presence of something so cosmic and violent, how could anyone walk away unscathed, unchanged? It was foolish of Eve to think either of them would.

Eve realised for them, for their marriage, it had been the final straw. The great divider. It kept Niko and Eve on opposite sides of a cavernous divide, the blood on her hands and the grief in his heart.

****

‘Eve?’ Elena asked, confusion evident in her voice, the familiar sounds of the MI5 office filling in the background.

Eve had thought it over. Four times. Exploring alternative ways of finding out where Konstantin was that didn’t involve anyone else. But she wasn’t Kenny, from her loungeroom she was useless. She needed help, then she asked herself who was more likely to come through Kenny or Elena. She wasn’t at all confident Kenny didn’t hate her. Elena, however, might just entertain it.

Eve knew she’d be at work and had called Elena’s mobile. It was technically against policy to check your phone at work but that had never stopped either of them. Eve tried to sound nonchalant. ‘I need to check in on the location of Konstantin Vasiliev.’

There was a beat. Elena’s voice was disapproving, ‘Do I want to know?’

‘He was working the last case with us. I just want to make sure he’s okay.’ Lies. Lies. Eve can’t tell if was convincing.

‘Can’t you ask Carolyn? It’s my job to protect and keep, not to leak.’

At the first huddle, Eve’s charade buckled. If it was a reasonable question Carolyn probably would help. Sooner than Eve expected she was pleading, ‘Please, Elena. You are my only shot.’

Eve heard a sigh through the line then the clacking of some keys. ‘Konstantin?’ Elena asked.

‘Vasiliev.’ Eve can hear the motor of the outdated desktops she worked over for year roaring in the background.

‘Hmm… he’s not in our custody, at least not officially. His family is still in a safe house just outside of London and we ordered more security to that location a few days ago. I’ll send you the address but no guarantees.’

‘Thank you. Thank you.’ The phone vibrated against her cheek; the address coming through.

Eve knew how this kind of thing worked, just because Konstantin wasn’t recorded as being there meant little. Eve was sure that if Konstantin was alive and free that’s where he was heading. ‘I swear this is the last time. It’s just a check-in.’

‘Bullshit Eve.’ There was dead air between them. ‘Look, what I am saying is this game you two are playing, there is more than one way to win. You can walk away.’

‘Thanks again, Elena,’ Eve replied leaving the warning unacknowledged.

**VILLANELLE – LONDON**

Villanelle watched the house from the backyard as Carolyn and her son rose in the slow morning crawl. They fascinated her, gravitating around each other like magnets, just barely sharing the same space until they left for work together.

Villanelle didn’t follow.

Her interests lay inside. It was instinct and revenge that bought her here and a lot of anger. She kept replaying aspects of the fight she had with Eve. It was clear of all the players in Rome, Carolyn had won. And being played in such a way didn’t sit well with Villanelle.

If it wasn’t for Carolyn, her own plan would have gone off without a hitch. Eve and Villanelle would be in Alaska, revelling in a foreign chill, not the gloomy greys of London. They would be starting their life together rather than patching their separate ones back together.

Not worried about concealing herself, confident that the house was empty and unwatched by anyone besides herself, she emerged from the shrubbery of the garden and tried the back door.

She could see into a dining room; the whole back face of the house was made of glass. It left little to the imagination. They lived in an atrium.

The door was locked, quickly she had it open.

She didn’t wait for an alarm. She’d be gone before anyone responded. One didn’t go off, however. She was alerted instead by a yap.

A small dog sprinted around the corner at her. It yapped again then rolled on its back at her feet. A greeting, not a warning. She stepped over it.

The kitchen was annoyingly white. The kind of white only people who rarely cook or can afford a cleaner enjoy. The bottom floor was a communal space, a library, dining table, kitchen. She went upstairs to the living areas.

Kenny’s room, so marked by blue block letters that Villanelle hoped was a remnant of boyhood, was dark. Blackout curtains were drawn over every window, a gaming computer was reeving on his desk. It was unnervingly clean like the rest of the house. The bed made, PJ’s already folded and back on the bed.

She contemplated entering, rummaging through his things when the little dog ran through her legs and bounded onto the bed. Seizing the moment, she closed the door on the man cave and man’s best friend.

Carolyn’s room was huge, dwarfing the king bed at its centre. There were no "his and hers" sinks in the ensuite just solo amenities. Villanelle flicked through Carolyn’s condensed, professional and expensive wardrobe.

The sleek modern room was decorated with pottery. Much of it looked amateur, rustic, the pots simplistic.

Separated from the bedroom by two wooden doors was an office. Villanelle had noticed this section of the house when she was outside, its windows were heavily tinted. On the shelves in Carolyn's office there were sparse stacks of decorative books, the remaining spaces were dedicated to ornate painted pots and vases. These looked expensive, more intuitive and masterful than the ones in her room. There was a sense of grandness to them too, a history that didn’t need to be stated on a plank beside it.

The desk looked out into the backyard. As expected, the computer was password protected. She opted to leave that be, for now, trusting that an official of British Intelligence had a password more intricate than 1234 and searched the desk.

Paperwork and more paperwork, all miscellaneous. Villanelle wasn’t expecting anything official but hoped for something unofficial. A little bit of dirt, Carolyn had forgotten to clean. She was about to give up when a piece of small card slipped out of a stack of papers she was sifting through. Slowly, it fluttered to the floor giving Villanelle enough time to recognise it, to spot her handwriting.

The postcard landed image up, it was the painting Villanelle had seen in Amsterdam. The two split bodies looking back at her like bloody eyes. Dropping the papers she cradled in her arms, she snatched up the card in disbelief. How could it be here? She turned it over to be sure, reread her own words.

_Darling Eve, I hope you haven’t forgotten about me!_

In hindsight, it read a little desperate.

Another little piece fell into place for Villanelle. Carolyn had been playing this game for a while. She flashed back to Amsterdam, the woman who came in Eve’s place to review the crime scene. How Villanelle thought Eve had chosen the Ghost, that she wasn’t interested in her anymore.

But Eve never got it.

At first, it was a relief then she prickled with anger. Carolyn had been keeping them apart.

Her phone zinged in her pocket. Humming at her on silent. She didn’t have to check the ID, only one person had the number.

‘Did you know Carolyn sleeps naked?’ Villanelle asked.

‘What? No. Where are you?’ Eve’s voice slide from shocked to suspicious.

Villanelle took the postcard in again. ‘Just getting to know our enemy.’

‘She’s not our anything. She’s my boss.’ The note of fear in Eve’s voice didn’t go unnoticed.

‘You trust her?’ Villanelle challenged, putting the card in her pocket, and moved to inspect Carolyn’s prized wall of ceramics.

One caught her eye. She went up to it as Eve tried to remain diplomatic with her answer, crafting it cautiously. It was tall, its body curving slightly and irregularly to resemble the shape of a rifle bullet balanced on its head. The decoration was understated yet captivating, a darker slip had been applied in a splatter. She wondered how much it was worth.

‘I know not to mess with her,’ Eve finally said.

Villanelle’s finger traced the splashed line of slip and scoffed, ‘Scaredy cat.’ Then she pushed the vase from its perch.

It shattered on the floor, reducing much of it to powder as its large remnants skidded and spread out on the hardwood floor.

‘What was that?’

‘Hmm? I didn’t hear anything on my end,’ she said, playing dumb. ‘I am free tonight if that’s why your calling?’

‘I have the address.’ Eve answered flatly.

**EVE – LONDON**

The last person Eve expected to see standing in her living room was Martin. He looked scruffy as ever, unshaven, the folder under his arm was overflowing with papers and he kept tugging at his pants.

He was examining his surroundings, basking in Eve’s living room like it was an art exhibit. He frowned, confused. ‘I thought you said your husband left you.’

Eve scanned around her; what clue had told him that? Then she decided not to give him that much credit, Carolyn probably said something.

‘It’s amazing what a dash of mortal peril can do for a marriage.’ She kept her tone clipped unwelcoming. ‘What do you want?’

‘It’s not about what I want. Carolyn sent me. She thinks we should talk. Considering everything.’

‘Eh.’ Eve slumped back into the couch. ‘Another test.’

He confirmed her suspicion by taking a seat. Thankfully not joining her on the couch, taking the recliner.

‘You coming back to work at MI6 isn’t dependant just on your physical state.’ He let a leather folder fall open on his lap. His pen at the ready.

This was going to be hell.

‘So, you told Carolyn everything then?’ Eve asked. It was a little painful to reflect on their last conversation, she’d poured his heart out to him. It was uncomfortable to even see him again.

‘I told her you came in to see me. Something she could find out on her own.’

‘Will you tell her what I say here?’ Eve tested.

‘Same rules apply, danger to yourself or others, or however, I choose to define that.’

She didn’t believe him. ‘Right.’

He consulted the blank page of his notes. ‘What happened in Rome?’

‘That’s a big question.’ Eve settled back if he was going to therapies her, she was going to get her lay down.

‘It’s a big deal.’ Eve didn’t budge, sighing he pivoted, ‘Why did she kill Aaron Peel?’

It was exhausting guessing the flow of information. What did Martin know? Did he know that Aaron Peel’s death was part of MI6’s plan? Did he not care? Was he using it to fish something else out of Eve? She kept her answer measured. ‘I don’t know. She had decided before I got there, invited me to watch.’ He waited unsatisfied; Eve gave a little more. ‘I think she got bored with him, once she knew what he was.’

‘What was that?’

‘A control freak who records himself killing women.’

‘Is that why she chose you?’ Eve knew what he meant. He meant why did Villanelle choose her over Aaron Peel’s offer. Eh. He’d heard the recordings. Or at least a redacted version.

‘Why are you asking me if you know what happened?’ Eve knew this game of resistance and trying to outsmart him was a dangerous one. She was playing it anyway.

He looked up from his notes. His eyes were earnest. ‘It doesn’t tell me what _you_ were thinking.’

Eve shrugged. ‘He didn’t have anything she wanted.’

‘And you did, you do?’ He asked.

Eve grit her teeth. It was clear his interest wasn’t in Eve’s mental state, at least not directly, it was centred on her relationship to Villanelle. Again, she evaded answering. ‘This feels like an interrogation.’

‘The man was murdered.’ His voice rose a little.

‘Not by me,’ Eve countered.

‘You stayed for her.’ It wasn’t a question. An accusation.

‘Yes.’ Eve answered anyway, squaring her shoulders.

‘Why?’

‘She was my responsibility. I knew she would wait for me.’

‘And then what? What was the next step in your plan?’

She scoffed. ‘There wasn’t one.’

That surprised him. ‘You two didn’t have a plan?’ A conspiracy, he should have said, you two weren’t planning on killing an asset and disappearing together?

She laughed. It seemed like everyone in Rome had their own agenda, but not Eve. ‘My plan was the operation I pitched and proposed to Carolyn. The one I thought MI6 were following.’

He made a note. Eve imagined him making a tally, for every time he thought she lied.

‘You never once put your concern for Villanelle above this operation?’

‘She was the operation. We stacked all our chips on her.’ It was the truth, but it was a little rich coming from Eve, considering she had just given up Konstantin’s location to Villanelle.

He rephrased, ‘You never let your feelings for her get in the way?’

She clenched her jaw. ‘No.’ 

He sighed and made another mark on his paper. He asked, not looking up, ‘What did Raymond want?’

‘Villanelle and … and she killed him.’ Even without his eyes on her, she stumbled over his question. Her palms sweating.

‘I hadn’t asked that yet.’ A flick of his wrist. ‘Why an axe?’ He looked up, genuine curiosity crossing his face.

‘He bought it with him,’ Eve said simply.

‘I just mean, she shot you.’ Eve tried not to flinch, tried not to show any reaction to his realisation.

‘She’s dramatic.’ She shrugged.

He knew he was prodding something big. ‘Right, why _did_ she shoot you? You’re … obsession – fascination seemed mutual.’

‘A question for her, I am afraid.’ Eve tried to act disaffected like it hadn’t crossed her mind like she hadn’t hurled the same question at Villanelle.

‘Come on now, Eve. You don’t have a theory? You didn’t talk to her?’ He craned forward, trying to peer deeper into Eve’s eyes. When he read Eve’s resolve he sighed and said, ‘Carolyn isn’t playing around this time. She wants you back as a proper investigator to help bring in the Twelve. Aboveboard, on the record. You must be up to scratch. Your fixation on Villanelle doesn’t aid her anymore. She’s interested in your mind and its application beyond her. You need to realise by protecting Villanelle you are leaving yourself vulnerable. Just give me your suspicions.’

He waited, watching Eve think it over. He was right. Villanelle had asserted the same thing, the safest place for her was behind Carolyn and that wasn’t going to happen without playing their games. ‘I guess she thought we were going to run away together since the whole world had turned on us and I wouldn’t go with her.’

‘So, like a toy, she threw you away.’ They both thought of his stapler analogy.

‘I suppose so.’

His brow crinkled again, thinking of something else. ‘A trained assassin though, she couldn’t manage a kill shot while you walked away?’

‘That’s another question for her, don’t you think?’

He leant in again, ramping up the pressure. ‘But you have to wonder. Is she coming for you, to finish the job? Or did she just wanted to send a message?’

Eve shrugged, her patience thinning. ‘Are we done?’

‘Do you still think about her?’

‘It’s hard not too,' she gestured to her stomach. 

‘Are you in love with her?’ He threw at her.

‘I left, didn’t I.’

‘Why didn’t you go with her? All your action kept you on the same path as her. And that was a step too far? Why?’

She couldn’t give him the real reason. The betrayal, Raymond’s death couldn’t feature in her narrative, but it had to stay convincing. ‘I am not like her.’

He noticed the conviction in her voice. Nodding in approval. Made another note.

**VILLANELLE – M16 SAFE HOUSE OUTSIDE OF LONDON**

Villanelle waited until dark to approach the house. It was nice, annoyingly so. A two-story house on a property. The security Eve warned her about were two police cars and one officer inside closely watching over the family.

The properties foliage made it easy to stay out of sight as she watched the house. Through the front windows, she saw them gather for dinner. Sure, enough Konstantin entered into view. His navy coat traded in for a grey dressing gown. His wife sat quietly across from him. Irina was beside him, yapping away filling the tense air.

It occurred to Villanelle that they had probably believed he was dead. Irina clung to him, uncharacteristically affectionate, taking comfort in his presence, happy her dad hadn’t died in front of her. While his wife just seemed angry.

He looked shaggy, his beard those few centimetres longer, unkempt. He took a sip of his full glass of whisky for every mouthful of dinner.

Villanelle couldn’t spot the officer inside.

As she watched them Villanelle couldn’t help but wonder what was so special about this tense family structure that Konstantin betrayed her for. He didn’t even look happy.

After clearing his plate and a few tense words Konstantin left view. Villanelle tried to track his movement through the house, keeping quiet and to the bushes. The officer finally came into view, he was watching TV in the same room as they ate. She cast a look back at the two cars. One’s face was illuminated by the light of their phone and the other’s head was tilted back, asleep.

She smiled to herself. It was as if they had rolled out a red carpet for her.

She worked her way around to the back of the house just as a lamp clicked on. It was a small office, backgrounded with shelves of books. Konstantin’s first action with all eyes off him was to refill his glass to the brim.

He was taking a big hearty gulp when she tapped on the window. He wasn't surprised just annoyed as he put his glass down, then he slouched and sighed.

She tapped again.

He finally regrouped and came to crack the window open. Villanelle looked rough. Her greasy hair pulled up into a shaggy bun, her white shirt was covered in dirt, her velvet pants were matted with dirt. He wondered how long she’d been wearing that, how long it had been since she slept and if she was hurt. Instead, he tried to keep his face stoic as he spoke, the alcohol vapers rolling off his breath, ‘Are you here to skin me alive?’ He mocked her.

‘Did you miss me?’ She countered, fishing a knife she’d taken from Eve's out of her pocket and pressing it into the round of his stomach through the opening of the window.

He didn’t answer just stepped back and pulled the window completely open.

As she climbed in, she said, ‘I thought you would be halfway across the world by now, running away with your tail between your legs.’

‘I got played.’ He had circled back to his drink.

Villanelle went to the door and locked it. Konstantin kept talking, rolling the amber liquid around his glass, ‘Carolyn gave me my family but not my freedom. That, she says, I can earn by helping her catch the Twelve,’ he shook his head, chuckled to himself. ‘She thinks there is blood in the water after Rome.’

‘Was it worth it?’ Villanelle asked.

He finally looked at her. ‘What?’

‘Betraying me.’

He smiled; he’d expected this. ‘Betray you?’ He laughed again. ‘You wanted to work with Eve, all I did was let you – against all my better judgement. _I_ came back to make sure you were safe. Don’t make the mistake of hating me for Eve letting you down.’

‘You talked to Eve?’

He shrugged. ‘I know you shot her. Still think you two are the same?’ His eyes lit mischievously; he was trying to piss her off.

Her lips twitched and her nostrils flared, for a moment, then her smile widened. In her mind’s eye, she was watching Eve swinging an axe. ‘Yes.’

He walked back to the window, peering out into the darkness that Villanelle had emerged from, his voice faking confusion he asked, ‘Then, where is she?’

‘She wasn’t ready,’ she responded through gritted teeth.

He looked smug, walking right up to her. ‘You mean, she wouldn’t give up her life, her family to join you in yours? Shocker. Could you just drop everything and merge into her life? Give it all up for her?’

‘I would,’ she said without hesitation.

He didn’t laugh, his smile was sad. ‘No. You couldn’t. You would get bored.’

‘I could never get bored of Eve.’ Most days Eve was the only thing that made Villanelle feel anything.

‘You would, especially, if you love her. Real love, lasting love, is sometimes boredom.’

He watched his words give Villanelle pause. She was thinking of his family’s silent dinner. And their insistence to share a meal even when he and his wife couldn’t stand each other. Finally, she asked, ‘Like family?’

He patted her head. ‘Yes, like family.’ It broke his heart to see her again, it meant she wasn’t safe. It meant she hadn’t given this up yet, she was still putting herself in harm’s way for Eve, or to prove she couldn’t be touched. ‘You should have listened to me. You should have run.’

Villanelle sat on the brown leather couch, slouching. A stubborn look he recognised settled into her features. ‘Eve needs me.’

He laughed and sat beside her. ‘Haven’t, you learnt anything? You put each other in danger by being close to one another, you focus all the eyes in one place. Where do you think the Twelve think you are? Where do MI6 think you are? Actually, they might have assumed you wouldn’t be this stupid to come back here.’

She raised a finger. ‘But you see that’s why it works.’

His face was sombre. ‘You can’t stay here.’

She looked around the cramped office. ‘I know. I don’t want to hang out with you-.’

‘I mean London. Raymond is dead, isn’t he?’

‘Yep.’ She smiled.

‘The Twelve will be after you.’

‘They always are.’

‘If you stay close to Eve, you know what will happen. They will come for you both. If you leave, there is a chance they will spend their time looking for you.’

Confidently Villanelle assured himI’ll protect her.’

‘How? From the shadows? Eve’s best chance is to make herself useful to Carolyn. She’s a powerful woman, it’s that association with Carolyn that has protected her so far. Your best chance is to leave and hope they get sick of chasing you.’

He realised she was ignoring him. Her eyes were out the window again. The hairs on the back of her neck were raised like someone was watching her. She tried to shake the feeling.

Frustrated, Konstantin said, ‘Why are you here? You’re clearly not here for my advice.’

It drew her back into the room, her senses still on the lookout.

‘My family. You said they weren’t all dead.’ She wasn’t sure why she kept that from Eve. It felt fragile like she might have imagined it. Maybe she wanted Konstantin to tell her she had. 

‘Ah. I did say that didn’t I.’

She waited impatiently. ‘So, who is it? A shitty uncle? And why do you know?’

Konstantin took a deep breath, she recognised it. He always that before he was about a long explanation and would have to grapple for her attention while doing it. ‘Before anyone is brought into the organisation a full background check is conducted. They want to know what ties we have to the outside world. So, they know how much of a liability you are and so they know how to manipulate you.’ Villanelle wondered what they knew about Konstantin, what they had over him. ‘Your parents were dead, there was no other immediate family, so I dug a little deeper. I found adoption information. It wasn’t relevant to the Twelve, but I looked into it.’

Villanelle cut him off, smirking. ‘You mean those scumbags weren’t my real parents?’

He ignored her. ‘They had a child before you. They gave her up.’

Villanelle didn’t know what she expected. For all her curiosity she hadn’t wondered, hadn’t imagined that.

An older sister. It seemed impossible for someone to exist with her genetics and for her to have never consciously known. That’s what family was right? A primal biological connection to protect your kind, someone like you. Villanelle had never understood the pull of family, the self-less rhetoric around it. Her father was a drunk. Her mother was dead for any informative parts of her life. Still, she found herself demanding, ‘Where is she?’

‘She was living in Moscow when -.’

‘What is her name?’ she said cutting him off and jostling the knife at him.

‘Nina Belikova.’

Villanelle repeated it to herself. The words meant nothing to her. She learned the words, the letters, trying to search through them for a face, for a feeling.

Konstantin noticed the shift. She was shell shocked. He sat down beside her, his arm sweeping around her. She thought about Irina leaning against him for comfort and did the same. Villanelle fell into his embrace, her head falling on his shoulder as his beard scruff ruffled her hair. She felt small tucked into his side, shielded. For a moment her guard slipped. The knife dangled in her hand, forgotten. 

‘It’s still not too late.’ He squeezed her shoulders, he sensed this had changed everything in ways Villanelle didn’t understand yet. He kept his tone soft to get through to her and tried again to convince her of his fears. ‘This is a gift. You can have your own life. The Twelve had taken a lot from you, don’t let them take this.’

Villanelle can’t tell what _this_ was, a sister she didn’t know? She looked up him, as his hand fell over hers, untangling her fingers from the knife.

‘Don’t die for this,’ he pleaded. 

Villanelle met his eyes; they were viscus and weak. Konstantin's worry for her was written all over his face. Her instinct was to retort that they wouldn’t catch her, but she wasn’t sure anymore. Of anything. What was the best thing for her or Eve? What did this new piece of information mean? Did it even mattered?

She let him take the knife and leant into him. Her exhaustion no longer held at bay. She couldn’t think anymore and she muttered, ‘What do I do?’

Konstantin's voice rumbled against her. ‘Leave. I don’t care where you go. Be safe.’

‘Tell me her name again.’ She hadn’t forgotten. She just needed to hear it spoken, hear it made real again.

‘Nina Belikova.’ He complied but sensed her train of thought. ‘Are you going to look for her?’

‘I don’t know.’ A beat. ‘Maybe.’

‘Do you have a plan?’

‘Nope.’

‘Money?’

‘Just what you gave me in Rome.’ And that reserve had taken a few hits, buying her nice suit, a flight to London and funding her lavish dinner for Eve.

Konstantin sighed and got to his feet, the action knocked Villanelle’s head from his shoulder.

‘Hey!’ She exclaimed.

‘Here.’ He returned returning with a piece of paper.

‘What is it?’ Villanelle asked taking it from him. She patted the spot beside her before she opened it.

He sat back down, the cushions condensing to push them back against each other. Villanelle unfolded the paper as he spoke, ‘An old friend. Last I heard he was still in Moscow, tell him I sent you. He might just have work for you. That should help you get on your feet.’

‘Work?’ Villanelle asked. It was an old business card, faded, all in Russian. It seemed to be for an old bar. She was not going to be a bartender. She recognised Konstantin’s scrawled handwriting in the corner was a name, "Ivan Yezhov".

He shook his head, cracked a reassuring smile. ‘The killing kind.’

She bumped him. ‘I thought you wanted me out of this life.’

‘Baby steps.’ He smiled, touched her chin. Then he sighed, leaning back on the couch. ‘Besides is there anything else you are good at.’

‘I have many talents.’

He rolled his eyes.

She left not long after, sensing their window of privacy would expire when the next ad break interrupted the officer’s show. Villanelle also needed to be alone. Her goodbye with Konstantin was odd. She tried not to be flippant. She honestly didn’t know when she would see him again, if ever. 

For the first time in a long time, their paths were diverging. 

On her way back to the car she swore she felt someone following her. She turned back to the house, the two cars were stationary, the TV in the house was still on. She made haste back to her car, trying not to let all of Konstantin’s warnings get to her, while simultaneously not trusting the darkness ability to hid things from her.

It felt like someone was breathing down her neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get this out before the trailer drops and I know too much about season three. I think I am too invested in this fantasyland I am writing, and I needed to get this out, so I am committed to finishing it. Even though it might feel pretty redundant as season three starts.
> 
> Also, I can’t seem to be concise about anything, these chapters are all longer than I expected so I hope you guys aren’t getting bored. But at the end of the day, this fic is super self-indulgent, and I am just enjoying writing it.


	8. Familiar Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve is dragged into Carolyn's new investigation. Villanelle starts her hunt for her sister.

**EVE – LONDON**

Healing was slow going. But sure enough, the scabby mushy opening firmed up into scar tissue.

It was no longer raw, having solidified into smooth pink skin that was outlined by white dots. A reminder of where her stitches had held her together.

Her overall health and mobility had improved. She could get up the stairs now. Not that she had returned to her marital bed. Niko and Eve were learning to live together as begrudging roommates.

Eve was just thankful existing was no longer laborious. She could dress and shower herself. Elena had stepped down from babysitting duties which meant Eve spent most of her days alone. And she was accumulating quite a list of questions she couldn’t answer. Villanelle’s whereabouts was still at the top of that list.

Eve hadn’t heard from Villanelle since she handed over Konstantin’s location. Eve hadn’t been arrested for betraying British intelligence so she could only assume Villanelle had gotten what she wanted.

Eve had sent a text to her burner a few days ago and still nothing. She chastised the pang of worry that rose in her chest.

She knew Villanelle wasn’t near.

And reminded herself that Villanelle had probably just gotten what she wanted and ran, truce be damned. That and she’d left a parting gift.

After enduring a long night of worrying about Konstantin’s, Eve woke to Niko screaming her name from the upstairs bathroom. As she was working through the long process of getting up, he came booming down the stairs, fretting hands stroking his upper lip.

‘My – my moustache,’ he stuttered. His hand clamped over his mouth.

Eve squinted at him through sleepy eyes, ‘What do you mean?’

He lowered his hands. Hair still decorated his upper lips, but it had been reshaped, the ends cropped into a distinct square, like a pixel over his cupid’s bow.

‘Oh,’ was all Eve managed.

‘It’s a -,’ he struggled to get the words out, red-faced and floundering.

‘You have to shave,’ Eve ordered.

They both knew it was Villanelle.

It hadn’t seemed like a goodbye then but in hindsight it did, a parting jab.

And when she wasn’t thinking about Villanelle, Eve was drinking tea.

Just then, the kettle called for her. As she filled her favourite mug there was a sharp rattle at the front door. Eve put the kettle back, pulling her large cardigan around herself.

‘Coming,’ she called slowly crossing the room.

The person’s silhouette was murky through the frosted glass. Eve opened the door a crack.

Carolyn stood, bundled in a large coat; her hair emasculates despite the wind. It was annoying how good she looked. Eve could feel the layer of grease on her skin and her pyjamas billowing off her.

Carolyn regarded Eve briefly before turning on her heels. ‘Good, you can walk. Come.’

Eve, braless and still in her pyjamas faltered. Carolyn was already making her way to the all-black government car that idled in the street, sleek and purring like a panther.

Sighing, Eve grabbed her boots and coat following Carolyn outside.

The hash cold air smacked her in the face and Eve realised how long it had been since she’s gone outside. She took a deep breath letting it clear out the cobwebs and dust she’d accumulated.

In the backseat of the car, Eve wiggled her cold sockless feet into her boots. Then trying not to bump Carolyn, pulled on her coat.

It smelt like Villanelle. Distinct, yet faint. It was more than her perfume; it was her essence.

Eve closed her eyes, drawing it around her. It transported her, the faint musk of Villanelle’s sweat undercut by the smell of turned earth, like she was there with Villanelle, standing over Gemma’s grave. Together they looked off the edge, Villanelle’s arms encircled her, becoming the warmth of her jacket, bracing Eve as she craned over the edge to see in.

‘Are you not wearing a bra?’ Carolyn observed, snapping Eve firmly into reality.

Instinctively, she pulled her coat tighter. ‘I’ve been laying down for the last two weeks, gravity hasn’t been a problem.’

Carolyn’s intrigue faded as she cast her eyes out the tinted window.

Carolyn, as always looked professional, all clean lines and quality fabric. None of the wrinkles and fuzz of Eve’s clothes. Almost feverishly Eve pulled her hair up into a bun to compensate.

The interior of the car was black and smelt of new leather. It perfectly matched its exterior, its appearance spelt out government vehicle about as much as having it painted on the bonnet would.

‘Where are we going?’ Eve asked.

‘We’ll be there soon.’

Despite, Carolyn’s confession she needed Eve’s help, it had been radio silence since she’d bought the footage of Villanelle’s handiwork in Rome. How this understanding would progress was still one big question mark. The absence of trust between them was palpable as they fell into silence.

***********

They slowed to a crawl out the front of an opulent modern house. Painted in all neutral colours, its segments were jugging out from the base of the house like a child’s block set. It was about eighty per cent glass. A questionable design choice in London. Eve decided it couldn’t be to observe the grey skies of London, it had to be so people could see in. So, people could envy that kind of money and most importantly you. The yellow crime scene tape running its parameter and the uniforms out front really ruined the desired aesthetic.

Thrill and unease jolted through Eve. There was very little doubt in Eve’s mind they were rolling up to a murder scene. And if Carolyn had gone to the trouble of retrieving Eve, the identity of the suspected killer wasn’t a mystery.

It gave her a thrill even to be near to Villanelle in this way, to be chasing her again.

Carolyn presence got them waved through the extensive security. Since being shot, Eve hadn’t been approved to work and she doubted her clearance was ever going to be the same. The young officer that lifted the tape for them regarded Eve’s pyjama pants with a cocked eyebrow but kept mute.

Inside the house, people were in various stages of profiling the crime scene. This was fresh. On prior cases, Eve had only ever come in after all the evidence had been collected. She guessed the same rules didn’t apply when you were Carolyn. Eve felt out of place like at any moment she would step on crucial evidence. She tried to stay in Carolyn’s wake, who pushed on with purpose until they were stopped by a nervous-looking man in a full-body Tyvek suit.

The plastic crinkled as he moved. In a quivering voice, he told Carolyn they had to suit up to proceed while forensic work was being conducted.

Eve reluctantly stripped off her coat and cardigan, stepping into the rough white plastic. It fit loose enough to conceal her body. Regardless, Eve kept pinching the fabric of her chest to keep it from sitting too close to her breasts. Then they slipped on the little shoe covers and face masks, with their hoods pulled up Eve and Carolyn looked like rejected Teletubbies.

They were led through to the back of the house and through a door into a large, all-glass, pool room. It looked out into the backyard, affording some privacy.

The air was heavy and humid, thick with chlorine and a note of something metallic.

At a guess, the ceilings were about 12ft high. The pool, which took up most of the room, was made from black tile that transformed into a grippy black slate at the edge of the water.

There were already five people suited up like them working the room, three collecting samples from the pool and two others who stood over a body with a giant blow-up doughnut next to them, sprinkles and all.

‘Carolyn,’ One of the suits near the body called as they entered. The joyous note in her voice echoed around the crime scene.

The woman approached, her arms wide as if she and Carolyn were about to embrace. At the last moment, she thought better of it, letting her hands fall to her side, shaking Carolyn’s gloved hand instead. ‘Should have known you would be working a case this weird.’

Laugh lines appeared around Carolyn’s eyes as she smiled back affectionately. Eve tried to peek past the woman, to the body but it was still obscured. Instead, she watched as someone across the pool fishes out a pink piece of fabric. They held it aloft, revealing its true form, a pair of knickers cut along the hip socket.

The woman was dark-skinned and curvaceous, filling out the formless plastic of her suit. The pulled- up hood hid her hair and her mask hid her mouth, but her eyes were kind if not a little mischievous as they regarded Eve curiously.

‘This is Eve,’ Carolyn supplied. ‘And this is Erin. Forensics, she works with Julie.’

Ah yes, Julie, Eve recalled, the woman with a full bar in a body fridge who had exhumed Peel.

‘Tell me, what we are dealing with,’ Carolyn instructed.

‘So, this,’ she gestured ahead of them to the body, ‘is Adelina Botezatu, 51, powerful businesswoman, overall badass. She married a beloved Romanian politician. After stepping down from running her companies, she became quite political, rumour has it she planned to run for Prime Minister someday. She caused quite the stir, mobilising the poor and female vote. A shame really. Her security called it in last night.’

Erin continued to lead them towards the body launching into an in-depth spiel about the crime scene. Eve listened but her feet faltered, staring down into the pool’s murky depths. At first glance, Eve had assumed it was the dark choice of tile that made the water appear so murky and endless. But looking over the edge, into the water, she could see it was muddied with blood.

There it was again, the metal tang to the air, the scent of copper mixed with chlorine. She spotted it, the dark red that had tainted the water.

Eve tried to imagine it, as Erin explained it to Carolyn, the body floating on a blow-up doughnut in the middle of the water, chest cracked open like a book, her breast slipping down either side of her body to rest on the fake icing and sprinkles as her blood spilled into the water.

It was absurd and horrific.

The image. The thought of it. Eve wanted to shrug it off like it was a joke she didn’t get. It was an idea that fought back the longer she prodded it.

Her eyes lowered from the pool’s centre to rest at her feet as she thought. The water grew still, like glass, until her own eyes stared back. The woman was tired, deranged, blood red and writhing as the water disturbed itself. Unease trailed a finger down Eve’s spin, kissed her neck. She couldn’t look away, meeting those glistening pupils.

Then something shoved her from behind. Eve was certain she was going in, her feet slipping on the tile in her booties. She went from craning over the water to all her body weight propelling forwards as the water grew closer. The bloody face and eyes watched, expectant. Ready to claim her.

A strong arm wrapped around her waist, knocking the air out of her and her scream with it. Winded and reaching for a breath, she felt the world right itself as the arm reeled her back in, away from the edge.

Eve felt the rumble of laughter against her back before it erupted into her ear. ‘Gotcha,’ Erin bellowed.

Eve pushed her off her. ‘What the hell?’ She demanded. The words echoed all through the glass box. The room stilled; all eyes were on them.

Erin’s smile faded; she took a step away from Eve, hands raised in surrender. ‘I wasn’t going to push you, promise.’ She reasoned, ‘It would contaminate the crime scene. No more jokes?’ She offered her gloved pinkie finger to Eve. Hyperaware of the eyes on them and out of words that weren’t profanities, Eve grasped it.

Carolyn gave no reaction to the commotion, simply waiting over the body, memorising the details of it.

Eve clenched her teeth.

It was as grotesque as described. They hadn’t closed her eyes, she stared up at the mosaic on the ceiling. With her sternum cracked and skin carved. Her ribcage was open, Eve could see inside of her from where she stood, it looked discoloured, drained of blood. The cut ran from her sternum to her pubic hair.

It was jarring to Eve. The knowledge the killer had undressed this woman. Like taking her life wasn’t enough. It felt rude to look, to partake in her defiling by examining her.

‘Is this the kind of thing that would take medical training?’ Carolyn asked calling Erin’s attention back to her work. Carolyn, of course, meant her opened chest.

Erin shrugged, kneeling back down beside the woman’s left arm and reaching her hand inside of her chest. ‘Not really, and they weren’t gentle.’ To illustrate her point her index finger traced the cracks in her ribs.

Watching someone casually reach inside of someone else’s chest was nauseating. It made Eve want to clutch her sides and hold her own ribs together. Despite this, Eve pushed herself up on her tippy toes to see inside the women, as horrible as that sounded. Her heart was missing, the rest of her insides were there, their colour off like old meat.

‘Do we have a clear cause of death?’ Eve asked.

Erin shrugged. ‘She drowned. But I doubt it was quick.’

‘Why do you think that?’

She peeled back the dark ringlets that clung to Adelina’s shoulders and neck, revealing meaty bruises. They painted a picture, strong hands holding her below the water. ‘The marks on her neck. Plus, this is one sick fucker.’

‘Noted,’ Eve said.

That was clear. Eve could barely make heads or tails of this. Was it the Twelve? The victim was sure high profile enough. And the Twelve had proven they weren’t above a theatrical killing, but this was something else. Post-mortem mutilation, posing of the body and taking a souvenir? That was nearer to a serial killer’s behaviour than an assassin for hire, psychopath or not. 

Eve knew why she had been asked here. But it didn’t feel like her work. It didn’t feel like Villanelle. she struggled to put her finger on why not. When it came to Villanelle Eve hesitated to say she was sure of anything anymore. But she maintained that the chances of Villanelle falling back into bed with an organisation like the Twelve were slim and she struggled to think of a single reason she might go to the effort of killing this woman without being paid to.

‘Have they found the heart anywhere?’ Carolyn asked.

‘Nope,’ Erin sighed.

‘So, they took it proof of the kill?’ Eve offered

Erin shook her head. ‘There isn’t anything distinctive about a human heart beside DNA. Plus, news of her death will spread itself.’

Eve opened her mouth to speak again when a new voice echoed through the space. Its owner was in a sprint, skidding along with the tile towards them. ‘Carolyn!’ He proclaimed.

Like everyone else in their suits, Eve could only make out his eyes, bespectacled and brown. She caught the scruff of grey stubble peeking out from under his mask.

He stuck his hand out towards Carolyn. She kept hers in her pockets till he retracted his. God, she was cool.

‘I see you have already got acquainted with the scene.’ He looked past her at the corpse, paling a little as Erin’s hand tinkered in the woman’s chest cavity.

‘Was there any security footage?’ Carolyn asked. Her eyes scanned the ceiling.

Eve mirrored her. There was nothing on the ceiling.

‘Yeah ‘bout that,’ he stuttered. ‘Her security team said it’s common for her to request that surveillance inside any of her residences be shut off and the guards posted outside for a few hours. Last night they left her alone from 7 till 10.’

‘Seriously?’ Eve remarked.

‘She’s a highly suspicious person, everyone wants to bring her down,’ he said, trying to abate Carolyn’s wrath.

‘Sounds healthy to me. A woman needs to be able to walk around naked, masturbate, have phone sex with her husband or his replacement without being recorded,’ Erin chimed in, not looking up.

‘Makes it pretty easy to get murdered.’ Eve countered, to Carolyn she said, ‘They stalked her. Timed it.’

Carolyn nodded accepting Eve’s assessment. Then asked the man, who still hadn’t named himself. ‘Do we have any likely suspects?’

‘A lot of people hated her. And a lot of powerful people were threatened by her. The list would belong.’

‘Thank you, Clive,’ Carolyn said, peeling away from him. He looked like a Clive. Then she turned back to Erin her tone, familiar, trusting, ‘Let us know if you find anything.’

*********

The car door had only just shut when Carolyn turned on Eve. ‘Well, what do you think?’

Eve’s head hurt. She pulled her hair down and slumped back into the seat.

‘Is it her?’ Carolyn persisted.

Eve played dumb. ‘Who?’

‘Villanelle,’ Carolyn said, reluctant to even speak the name.

‘You think she’s back with the Twelve?’

‘It’s possible. She was in London, as of a few weeks ago.’ Eve’s eyes widened, she tried to hide it but Carolyn caught it and continued, ‘Yes. She broke into my house. Poor Marten was terrified, pissed all over Kenny’s bed.’

It took Eve a moment, first, she thought of Martin, quivering, piss staining his pants, then she remembered Carolyn’s little dog.

‘Why would she do that?’ Eve asked.

Carolyn shrugged. ‘To intimidate me, though her attempt to do so reads more like the tantrum of a child than the wrath of a fearsome assassin. But it does suggest she is keen to continue your little game. Maybe this is her first move?’

Eve shook her head. ‘

Carolyn waited.

‘I can’t feel her there.’ Eve knew how ridiculous the words sounded but they slipped from her lips too quickly. ‘Before, half the fun, for her, was the chase. She _had_ to let me know it was her. She wanted me to _see_ it was her. Like a cat dragging birds and rats to your front door. This. This is different. It isn’t playful and spontaneous or fun. It’s brutal and performative. Meticulous.’

Her lips pursed; she was unconvinced. ‘Performative, sure sounds like Villanelle.’

‘Villanelle is indifferent to the people she kills. There was hate in that. They wanted to humiliate her. They wanted to take their time.’ Carolyn’s lips staying pursed, stubbornly. Eve tried again, ‘Do you think Villanelle has the patience for that?’

This was different, Eve was certain of that. Killing was a love language to Villanelle, if this was her, the tone had surely changed. It made Eve’s skin crawl.

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW, RUSSIA**

Villanelle was in the outskirt of Moscow, far from any tourist attractions, in the cracks, where the law's grip slackened. Here the city’s underbelly was allowed to live, ruling the lives of already impoverished.

She hadn’t missed Russia.

The apartment building, she entered under the cover of darkness was in disrepair. Everything a shade darker, run through a filter of grime. She shouldn’t have been surprised when the elevator was broken.

She climbed three flights till she reached the third floor. Despite it being the dead of night, the place was restless, but apartment 331 slept.

Turns out there are plenty of Nina Belikova in Moscow. Thankfully, few fit the parameters Villanelle could layout like age narrowed thing down. Going by facts and figures this place was most likely to belong to Nina unless she had moved from Russia altogether.

In the flickering lights of the narrow hallway, she picked the door's lock, listening for people walking the halls. It was quick work and Villanelle slipped inside.

The apartment was small, she stumbled into the dining table which sat between the tiny lounge room and kitchen. The three areas sharing the same space. To her left, down a narrow passageway, she could see three doors, likely bedrooms.

Villanelle clicked on her miniature battery-powered torch to look around. The place was eclectic and kind of messy, no real style just a collection of belongings, their significance unapparent. On the table there was were a bunch of travel magazines advertising the beauty of Europe, they balanced atop another pile of unopened bills.

It was a photo that caught her attention though. Holding the dusty frame under the beam of her light, she searched the collection of faces for her own or a mirror of her own. She didn’t know what she should look for, maybe it would just be a feeling.

She was trying to inspect their eye colours when there was giggle. At least it sounded like a giggle, but it was so high pitched. It came from one of the rooms.

Snapping into action Villanelle put the frame back and followed the sound, keeping her footsteps silent.

The first door was open ajar, a soft light emanating from within. Cautiously she peered in. Within there was a bulky wooden cot and a rocking chair. Clicking the torch off Villanelle approached, tentatively leaning over the crib.

Big eyes looked back, finding her in the glow of its teddy bear nightlight.

She leant in closer, trying to find herself in the child. Its eyes were hazel, she supposed. Similar enough to hers with their little flecks of colour. But its hair was dark, thicker than hers ever was.

Avoiding the slobber but intent on investigating further, Villanelle lifted it by its foot, propping it up on the cushion of its diaper to inspect its back. There was nothing but pudgy pink skin.

It giggled again. Shoving its fingers into its mouth.

It didn’t not look like her, she supposed. She couldn’t remember her baby photos.

She had expected something profound, something undeniable. Family, it was always so magical, like she would know, that it would awaken something inside of her.

Villanelle poked it in the belly, lightly, the baby smiled, showing its gums and its few teeth breaking through.

She wiggled her finger in front of its face. The baby grabbed hold of it, its grip was weak, but Villanelle let it hold on. It pulled her hand to its body. Palm against its chest, she felt the clumsy beat of its heart. She possessed more power in her index finger than that tiny organ. Then baby tried to suck on her finger. Looking at its drool coated lips, she yanked her hand back. 

The baby stared at her wide-eyed and silent. Then it burst into tears, its face creasing like a bulldog’s and turning red. 

‘Stop that,’ she muttered. Holding her finger out again, a peace offering. 

The baby cried harder; a light flicked on in the room next door.

‘Shit,’ Villanelle muttered under her breath. 

The room was small, and she didn’t like her chances of making it out. There was a built-in wardrobe across from the crib, carefully she opened it. The shelves where full of nappies and baby clothes, but beside that was long hanging space that held only a vacuum and a broom. Without letting them knock into each other she got in. It was a tight fit. She slowed her breathing and eased the door closed, just as she heard footsteps growing close.

The feet halted in the doorway.

‘Oh, Oksana,’ a woman’s voice cooed.

Villanelle froze and for the briefest of moments, she was a child again, her mother’s voice calling her from another room. The threat of the moment drew her back. 

The footsteps entered the room and her breath caught in her throat; her muscles coiled as she waited for the closet door to whip open.

Instead, the woman scooped the baby up in her arms. The baby calmed, its wailing morphing into a weak sobbing. In Russian Villanelle heard the woman talk to it, ask it what was wrong, sniffed its dipper. ‘ _Are you afraid of the dark, munchkin_?’

Villanelle peeked through the seam of the door. A woman rocked back and forth in the light of the nightlight.

A woman with a heart-shaped face. Big green eyes and dark brown hair – like Villanelle’s was naturally. She was a few inches shorter, curvy, stouter. The product of a different life and built for a different purpose. 

Villanelle recognised her. As Nina danced, she saw flickers of her mother and father, both love and pain, and finally herself, a dead and old self. 

The baby was out almost immediately but Nina only put it back down once it was in a deep sleep and returned to bed. Villanelle waited even longer, immobilised by caution, her mind racing.

Had she heard right? The woman had said her name. Her sister had said her name. That didn’t seem right. 

She emerged from the closet slowly and approached the cot again. Afraid she might not pull off waking up the baby, she didn’t touch it this time just watched as it slept. Its ribcage falling up and down like birds, working so hard for its little body. It was strange to think she was like that once so small and undeniably vulnerable. 

Something caught her eye, on the edge of the blanket the baby cuddled was some lettering. In Russian, hand-stitched with care was the name _Oksana_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this chapter should really be called 'here we go!', cause you know shit is getting real when you have to make a timeline to plan the next few chapters.
> 
> I have a killing eve side-blog on Tumblr if y'all wanna join me in freaking out about season 3. It's we-are-colleagues.


	9. The Bloody Bear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve begins her investigation into the assassination of Adelina Botezatu. Villanelle hunts down Konstantin's acquaintance and attempts to get close to her sister.

**EVE - LONDON**

Again, Eve woke up to Carolyn on her doorstep. This time she dragged Eve to a crummy office block. The lights in the elevator blinked out when they reached their floor. The walls and the floors shared a bluey grey hue. Dust. A cockroach scuttled across their path, that was probably worse luck than a black cat.

Carolyn acknowledged the look of revolution on Eve’s face and said, ‘I’m afraid we’re back at square one. The Twelve’s presence in Rome was enough to prove the importance of our work despite the mess. They haven’t shut us down, but we are on thin ice. It’s a small team, barely any money.’ Carolyn paused at an office door; on its window was a laminated printout that said “Geeks ‘R’ Us” along with phoney business hours and clipart of a smoking laptop. She seemed caught on a thought. ‘Eve, this investigation, this unit, it’s not about Villanelle. We are hunting the Twelve.’

It took a beat for Eve to realise Carolyn was waiting for a response, ‘Roger that.’

Carolyn opened the door. The office was small and bare. Pressed closely to the back of the room was a whiteboard, it had already been adorned with photos and a messy script. There were four desks, the layout was reminiscent of a schoolroom, arranged two by two facing the board. Kenny sat in the front row, an obnoxiously large headset protruding from his head, he didn’t hear them enter.

It was eerily like their first office. The wooden desks and window frames were a small deviation. It felt familiar and like a failure all in one. Eve thought of Bill. All that death, and for what? Villanelle was gone and there were more bodies on their wall.

She got a little closer to the board, her leg hitting the second row of desks. There were three photos, the selfie of Raymond and his mistress, a photo of her body and one of Adelina’s body.

Carolyn joined her. ‘We were digging into Sofia and Raymond, in the hopes their connection to the Twelve might help unravel something. Now we will also be looking into the assassination of Adelina Botezatu and this new player if your theory is correct.’

In front of them, Kenny slapped his desk, the wheels of his chair squeaking as he tapped his feet. Eve could hear the ripple of EDM in the air around him.

‘It is just me and Kenny?’ Eve asked as they watched him.

‘There is four of you. Martin and Hugo will be joining you. I’ll help when I can of course. It’s important we keep this in house. The same team. No rogue elements.’

‘You are bringing Martin on, as in psychologist Martin?’ Eve didn’t hide her distaste.

Carolyn pivoted to Eve. ‘Yes. Was I meant to ask your permission?’

‘It’s just you were saying you wanted to keep this a closed operation,’ Eve challenged.

Carolyn was expecting it. ‘He’s consulted on his case already and from your analysis, we could be dealing with more than one psychopath.’ Their eyes locked in a dance of deception. Eve could sense the truth was hidden in the spin of Carolyn’s words; Martin was going to be watching.

Kenny swung round; eyes closed feeling the music then opened his eyes to the two of them glaring at one another. ‘Ah! How long have you been there?’ he asked muting his computer and pulling off his headset.

He broke their trance. Carolyn got back to business. ‘There isn’t much to work with yet. I’ve had Kenny compiling data on the victim. I ordered a rush on the autopsy, Erin said she can do it tonight, and have the report to us tomorrow. Toxicology and labs will take their time.’

The office door swung open behind them.

‘Ah Martin, I was just giving Eve the tour,’ Carolyn said her voice sickly sweet.

Martin entered tuna sandwich in hand, a slather of mayo caught in the seam of his lips. Eve shook his hand. It was sweaty, he kept eye contact short. Eve narrowed her eyes after him as he took a seat. It was far from the calm demeanour he displayed when they last spoke, he looked guilty, confirming Eve’s theory.

‘Right. I’ll let you get settled,’ Carolyn excused herself. 

Eve took a seat at the edge of her new desk beside Kenny’s staring down the board. They hadn’t broken any ground. 

Kenny joined her; he knocked their shoulders together. ‘I’m glad you’re alive,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’ It was in earnest. Kenny was a breath of fresh air, a motiveless angel but Eve wasn’t sure she deserved Kenny’s concern. 

‘You think we could convince Elena to come back and take Martin’s place?’ Eve whispered.

Kenny gave a little snort. ‘Don’t think so. She had more sense than either of us.’

His eyes went all dreamy just from the mention of Elena. ‘You’re smitten with her, aren’t you?’

‘Shut up.’ The smile on his face said it all. He craned in and looked closely at the photo of Adelina’s body. ‘Do you think it’s Villanelle?’

Eve decided to be honest. ‘I don’t.’

He didn’t hide his surprise. ‘Really? You always think it her.’

‘It normally is. I don’t know why she would do this.’ She kept her voice low, aware Martin’s ears would perk up at the vaguest mention of Villanelle.

‘I thought that was her thing. There is no reason she does anything.’

‘Yeah,’ she responded absently.

‘You don’t seem convinced.’ Eve shook her head. Kenny sighed, ‘For some reason, it’s not comforting to think there is someone else as horrible or worse than Villanelle out there.’

Eve angled her body to him, cutting the board out of her eye line. ‘Look, Kenny, about everything… I’m really sorry.’

‘I was being a good friend to you, Eve.’

‘I know.’ At least she did now, in hindsight Kenny was one of the few people who had her best interests at heart.

‘And you fired me,’ in a very Kenny way he was stating facts, not casting stones. He sighed then continued, ‘I am glad you’re alive, and that you seem to be doing better. But you - but you don’t just get my trust back.’

‘Then I’ll earn it,’ Eve promised, resting her hand over his.

‘I hope so.’ He smiled back at her, squeezing her hand.

****************************************

Martin would make a shitty spy. Eve felt him watching her as she read the file Kenny had compiled about Adelina Botezatu. When she’d look over at him, he’d jerk back to his computer, his fingers clacking randomly against the keyboard.

He might as well have brought his shrink set up or been videoing her for Carolyn.

She was considering saying something. Martin didn’t seem like someone who would thrive in confrontation when Kenny’s voice broke through the tension.

‘Uh, guys I found something,’ Kenny said, his voice breaking.

Martin forgotten, Eve hopped from her seat, crowding over Kenny’s shoulder. He continued, ‘This is an interview with Adelina from two years ago.’

He was looking at an article. With his cursor, he highlighted a passage.

_“Interviewer: You are the face of a female awakening in Romania, you embody everything we have all been too scared to do and say. I want to know what’s the one thing that scares you? Is there is anything your still afraid of?_

_“Adelina: This is going to sound silly, but I have been afraid of the ocean. My grandfather was a tuna fisherman and one trip he didn’t come back. When I was younger, I used to have dreams about him drowning, miles from his family. Ever since I’ve thought that would be the worst way to go, drowning so far from home.”_

‘Jesus H. Christ,’ Eve said.

‘I know, right? It couldn’t be a coincidence?’ Kenny asked.

‘If you found it, why couldn’t the killer?’

Kenny shivered, ‘Ugh.’

‘Yeah,’ Eve said. That was something new, taking the time to tailor a death to that person’s worst fear. She spun around grabbing her coat and bag. ‘I’m going to the autopsy.’

‘What, why?’ Kenny asked.

‘To do my job. That body is the only scrap of evidence we have right now,’ she called back to him, bag on her shoulder heading out the door.

That was a shaving of the truth. Eve was hungry, she needed to hunt, to take in their scent. And she wasn’t going to find that in folders and documents.

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW**

When Villanelle arrived in Moscow, she didn’t have a plan. She was following her curiosity; it would be a short affair. Laying eyes on this stranger would dispel all her allure. Then Villanelle would be satisfied and on the next flight back to London, back to Eve. But the glimpse she had of her sister’s life roused more questions than it answered. 

On her way out of the apartment building, Villanelle made a detour to bang on the landlord’s door, through the thin walls she could hear the buzzing of a television.

A man opened the door. He was short, Danny Devito-Esque, unshaven and greying. His manner was unpleasant till she handed over the equivalent of a few hundred dollars in Rubles to him and asked for the closest apartment to 332.

He didn’t question her and was nearly delightful a few hours later when he handed her the keys to her very own shit hole. Apartment 333, it sat across the hall, diagonal to Nina’s.

Its hinges squeaked open in greeting. The layout mirrored Nina’s apartment. It was empty aside from a fridge, a mattress and an old couch, Villanelle was pretty sure wouldn’t fit back out the door. The tour was short then she was left on her own.

Her first order of business should be to get a phone or a laptop, some device she could use to order furniture. However, she was far from affluent at the moment, she needed money.

She pulled the dented business from her pocket and reread Konstantin’s scrawled handwriting. Her first task was to find out more about this Ivan Yezhov.

It presented the perfect opportunity for Villanelle to try out the persona she’d been fashioned to get close to Nina. Villanelle could be impulsive, but she was taking a cautious approach with Nina. From Villanelle’s perspective, from outside of Nina’s life, she seemed normal, boringly so. The kind of person who wouldn’t cope too well with their long-lost sister moving in next door. And if she wasn’t as plain as she appeared, Villanelle wanted to keep her guard up.

It was time for Nina to meet Katya, a well-travelled successful translator but not to a degree that would alienate or make her question why Villanelle was living in this apartment building. She wanted to be respectable, trustworthy, interesting. 

It was only as her knuckles knocked on 332, she considered that just because she hadn’t known about Nina that didn’t mean Nina didn’t know of her. Maybe when they were younger, they were allowed to meet and over time she had become just a foggy face in Villanelle’s memory. Maybe Nina had dug into her own past. Otherwise naming her daughter Oksana might be one of fate’s cruellest coincidence.

Nina creaked open the door and Villanelle plastered on a smile. She was in a robe, her green eyes heavy with exhaustion. It was seven in the morning after all.

 _‘Yes?_ ’ She asked, impatient. She nearly looked through Villanelle, her slack face absent off recognition and growing in annoyance.

Villanelle stared blankly. It was a relief that Nina didn’t recognise her, but it also froze Villanelle in place. Something was jarring about it, about their vastly different understanding of this moment. Villanelle saw it as their first meeting and Nina as an inconvenience. It knocked her off her game. ‘ _Do you have any newspapers?_ ’

Nina rubbed her eyes, puzzled. ‘ _Newspapers?’_

 _‘Yeah. I want to paint_ ,’ she said quickly, her answer clunky.

Nina measured Villanelle up then said, _‘I have some, give me a second.’_ She disappeared behind the door. There was some rustling, Villanelle remembered the layout the house, she was ploughing into the stack that occupied the fourth dining room chair.

She re-emerged in the crack of the door, juggling the stack at her hip. She held them, hostage, for a moment and asked, _‘Where did Mrs Utkina go?_ ’

Villanelle’s hand hovered awaiting the papers. _‘Who?’_

_‘The lady who used to live in 333?’_

Villanelle shrugged. It explained why the place smelt like an old lady. _‘I don’t know. It is the apartment they gave me.’_

 _‘Shame,’_ she handed Villanelle the stack. _‘She used to babysit for me sometimes. Nina, by the way.’_

‘Katya.’ They shook hands. Their hands fit. Feeling all too seen, all too bare Villanelle retreated, instead of a farewell she said, _‘You should get a chain on your door.’_

*************

Spread out on the silverfish infested carpet, Villanelle skimmed the newspapers.

The papers were quite fascinated by the drama in the criminal underbelly of Moscow, they laid it out like an epic. Perhaps it was to fearmonger, to distract from bigger issues but it told Villanelle everything she needed to know.

There were two competing families the Yezhov and the Volkov. Good old Ivan and his family were the old blood. It was hard to tell who was winning the war for Moscow but the press favoured him, favoured the old fear to the new.

The Volkov had violently and quickly made names for themselves. Their interests were narrowed to money and drugs. They wanted power to better move product.

Meanwhile, Ivan had his fingers in every pie, he had his clubs, his ‘security business’, he was also a loan shark. Name a nefarious and underground method of making money and Ivan was doing it.

Their war played out in the space of the two blocks between the Yezhov’s and Volkov’s home territories. The kings sat in their thrones moving money, sending their lackeys to intimidate the other and ordering assassinations on each other people. Low-level stuff, the kind of bad guys killing bad guys, the police welcomed.

As she flipped back through weeks and months, she reviewed the work of her competition. Each side had an assassin. Ivan’s man was brutal, old school. Knuckle dusters and curb-stomping though he seemed to have found a signature and a taste for strangling people nylon rope.

The Volkov’s assassin had class, she supposed. And a nickname, _‘The Hawk’_ . So, named because he was a sniper. He was surely ex-military, or ex-something. People didn’t just know how to take a kill shot from hundreds of metres away. Villanelle knew how, but she wasn’t people.

It was deflating to realise the Volkovs paid more and might even be winning and she was about to sign up for team Ivan. An in was an in, she supposed. It would take months to win favour with the Volkov. With Konstantin’s backing, Villanelle was sure all she needed to get close to Ivan was a hideous dress and her lovely personality.

**EVE – LONDON**

If Eve was honest with herself it wasn’t just about the chase, she couldn’t bear to go home. She’d stopped wearing her wedding ring. The jewellery was too heavy, too loaded with memories and meaning.

Dead bodies and the company of a stranger felt safer than returning to Niko’s knowing eyes.

When Erin let her into the morgue, Eve had to do a double-take. Out of the mask and plastic and in some scrubs it was like meeting someone new. The only source of familiarity was those nearly black eyes and her chipper voice.

Erin was kind of beautiful. Her black hair was shaved short. Her dark skin was smooth, makeup-less. Rounded cheekbones led into plum coloured lips. Her childishness had led Eve to picture someone younger, a girl not a woman. As she followed Erin inside, Eve noticed a birthmark creeping up from the collar of her shirt and around the back of her, it was a few shades darker than her skin.

‘Your first time?’ Erin asked leading Eve into the autopsy room. It was the building Eve looked over the exhumed body of Alistair Peel. The place was empty besides the two of them if one didn’t count all the bodies.

The autopsy room was reminiscent of a surgical theatre, silver services everywhere, a trough to scrub in. Behind a large pane of was a viewing room, fitted with a computer and a desk.

Erin gestured to it as they entered the autopsy room, Adelina Botezatu body waiting for them on the table. ‘Normally, we make you lot sit in there behind the glass. Easier to clean up the puke. But if you want to watch this isn’t a free ride, you’re taking notes for me.’

Eve took the clipboard Erin handed her willingly but asked, ‘Aren’t you meant to use a voice recording thingy?’

‘Usually. The Jeopardy marathon starts in a minute. Having both going at the same times doesn’t work, I’ve tried it before.’

There was an old box TV mounted in the corner of the ceiling, currently on silent as it ran through a cycle of adverts. Eve swallowed her suggestion that maybe Erin should just not watch Jeopardy as she explained the autopsy paperwork to her, where to check, where to take notes. All the important parts Erin said she could fill out later.

They started with the external examination, looking for distinguishing marks, bruises, wounds on the surface of her skin. For this Erin kind of closed Adelina back up, pulling the two side of her chest together to properly examine her original sate.

The body was no less jarring, but the procedural nature of the autopsy helped. The gore was displaced by the professional environment and the heavy scent of cleaner. 

From where Eve stood, she saw a tattoo right over where Adelina’s heart should be. It was old, the thin script muddied over time.

Up close Erin could make out the word and relayed it to Eve for her to note down. ‘Tattoo of the word “Clara” on her chest above her left breast.’

Eve’s hand wobbled as she wrote. She recognised it from the file Kenny had compiled for her. And suddenly and painfully this body was a woman again, a woman whose daughter was going to grow up without her mum because of this asshole.

Erin carried on, not noticing Eve’s blip. ‘Can you unmute the TV the first round is about to start?’ Taken aback Eve did, the theme song bounced off all the stainless steel. Erin continued, ‘Bruising around the neck indicative with hands holding her under the water and strangulating her.’

Without warning, Erin asked, ‘What is Shrek?’

Lost Eve answered, ‘Uh… a green man thing?’ 

Erin looked just as confused her eyes cutting from the TV back to Eve. She pointed to the screen. ‘No, it’s the question for the clue: animated movie, 2001: Donkey.’

‘Right.’ Eve fought off an eye roll.

They noted a few more minor blemishes before Erin looked up at Eve. ‘This next part is usually where people get a little green. You sure you want to watch this?’ 

Eve nodded.

‘It’s not pretty.’

‘I’m sure.’

Erin grabbed the scalpel from the wheelie tray beside her. ‘Well, this is where I would normally cut her open.’ She ran her blade in an imaginary V on her chest, swerving around either side of her breasts so the lines met right at the central arch of her rib cage. Then her blade continued down, turning it into a Y, to mime splitting the soft flesh of her stomach. ‘And voila,’ she said like a magician at the end of her trick, she pulled the already separated sides of Adelina's ribs apart.

To keep her feet under her Eve watched the screen. A new clue popped up on the screen: _She said of refusing to give up her seat, ‘the only tired I was, was tired of giving in._

Erin answered while the host was still reading the clue. ‘Who is Rosa Parks?’

She’d began riffling through her organs, poking and pulling while her eyes were loyal to the Jeopardy rerun on the screen. Eve ground her teeth; this was entirely unprofessional.

Eve shot a glance at the screen; another clue was up: _2 – word French term for a dangerous woman in a film who you’d better not turn your back on_.

The contestants went silent. Eve watched Erin’s brow furrowed; she didn’t know the answer. Her hands stopped working.

Through clenched teeth, Eve answered, ‘Femme fatale. Can you focus?’

‘Nice, but you have to pose it as a question for it to count,’ Erin acknowledged before her eyes drifted back to the screen. ‘I don’t tell you how to do your job,’ she was dismissive, unrattled. And without warning switched back into her analysis. ‘The heart is missing, of course. Hmm,’ she frowned then pointing a surprisingly unbloodied finger at the metal table behind Eve. ‘That sheet there is her medical records, check to see if she had her gallbladder out.’

It took Eve a moment to figure out how to read it. She skimmed her history of surgeries and there it was. ‘Yeah.’

‘Good. I mean, I figured that was the case, it’s would be a pretty shit trophy.’ As she spoke the host read the next prompt: _She declined burial in Westminster abbey: her pallbearers were from army units whose wounded she had tended._ Without a beat, Erin said, ‘Who is Florence Nightingale?’

Eve ignored it. ‘So, you think the heart is a trophy?’

Erin shrugged then smirked as she peeked up at Eve. ‘I won’t tell you how to do your job.’

That got a smile from Eve. ‘I think you’re right. The symbolism of taking the heart is bold.’

‘Symbolically yes. Biologically it’s stupid. It will decompose. Soon it won’t resemble a heart.’ She shrugged.

They fell into a rhythm, Erin calling things out, Eve jotting them down. Erin seemed a little more committed to her task to satisfy Eve but still refused to miss a question.

The body was telling the story they had already guess, bloody foam in her airways, evidence of water in the lunges and stomach. She’d drowned. Eve doubted that the results of the toxicology would change the story and it certainly wouldn’t point Eve in the direction of who did it.

After each organ was examined it was weighed and placed into a big plastic bag beside Erin.

‘Is that for the trash?’

‘Oh no. Way weirder. The bag goes back in the chest cavity when I stitch her up. It is meant to prevent leaking; we might be done with her, but she’s got a long trip home and a funeral before she can rest.’ Erin smiled. She enjoyed presenting the casual horrors of her line of work. Eve understood that seeing someone boggle at all the things you had become accustomed to was grounding.

Eve’s initial guardedness towards Erin had shifted to curiosity the longer she spent with her. She was an oddball for sure. The kind of ruthlessly clever people Carolyn cultivated but Eve still didn’t understand her apparent fondness for Erin.

As Erin retrieved a heavy-duty needle that was loaded with a thick wire Eve asked, ‘How do you know Carolyn?’

‘Our clients,’ Erin said poking the needle through the flesh of Adelina’s chest.

‘Funny,’ Eve said dryly.

‘Thanks,’ she pulled tight on the thread and haphazardly the two sides bridged as she sowed. The stitch looked like the fat meaty seam of a baseball. ‘She was friendly with my superiors and slowly we got acquainted then I got assigned to a few of her cases. Carolyn knows everyone,’ she shrugged.

‘She doesn’t like everyone,’ Eve countered. Carolyn approached everything with icy indifference, even her son. 

‘You’re right,’ Erin said. ‘Like any leader, she’s a collector, she sees people and things that can benefit her, and she pulls them close. You think I don’t get anything from Carolyn thinking I do good work? I’d say my talents are clear,’ she gestured to the body before her then to the TV.

Her tone shifted when she spoke again, flipping Eve’s interrogation on its head. ‘I looked you up, you know. You’re not qualified for this, at least not officially. A secretary from MI5 who got fired and wound up working off the books for Carolyn then dropped off the face of the earth after getting shot in Rome and now you’re back in her good graces. No harm, no foul. She must see a great deal of value in you.’

It wasn’t quite no harm no foul. Eve caught herself reaching for her side and the newly formed scar tissue, she adjusted the tuck of her shirt instead. ‘I – I’m nothing special.’

An odd look came over Erin’s face, it was intense and heavy. It made Eve straighten up.

‘I don’t believe that for a second.’ When she spoke her tone soft. And her eyes pouring into Eve’s, who could have sworn they twinkled a little.

A softball question went unanswered in the background.

Then it dawned on Eve; Erin was flirting.

**VILLANELLE** **– MOSCOW**

As Villanelle was leaving her apartment, she heard a myriad of loud noises coming from 332. She paused, key in the door for a moment, till she heard the deep rumble of a man’s voice inside the apartment. 

Without another thought Villanelle lurched into action, ducked back inside, sweeping up the bundle of newspapers and knocked on Nina’s door.

The knock splintered the shouts inside. They fell silent. 

_‘Don’t get it,’_ the man said.

Then the door opened, it was Nina. She still looked tired but otherwise unharmed. She was apologetic, expecting to be met by an angry neighbour. _‘Sorry, we’ll pipe down_.’

Villanelle eyed the tall dark-haired man pacing behind her. _‘I just came to return these,’_ her eyes were on him as she jutted the papers at Nina. He met Villanelle’s eyes with anger and annoyance. 

With all three of them quiet, Oksana’s crying rang through the floor. Nina shot him a pointed look. _‘Dmitri,’_ she prompted.

 _‘I’ll get the kid,’_ he said begrudgingly.

A little confused Nina took the papers back. _‘I thought you were painting?’_

 _‘I decided not to. Thank you_. _’_ Nina was edging the door shut again, letting things wind up, confusion still plainly spelt out on her face.

Satisfied she was safe Villanelle left. Charting her planned course to Ivan’s club, appropriately and obnoxiously called ‘ _Krovavyy_ _Medved_ ’, which means the bloody or murderous bear in English.

**************

The cheap dress Villanelle had acquired, all clinging and white got her waved through the doors of Ivan’s club without fuss. Once inside the scent of decades of spilt liquor violated her nostrils. It was old school, the interior broody and carrying a sort of outdated opulence that was tacky now.

The dance floor was surrounded by a raised stage of abandoned stripper poles. That section of the club was kept separate from the VIP area, where there were booths and pool tables.

She pushed through the drunken crowd, deeper into the venue to get a closer look at the VIP section. Four burly men surrounded a cards table, three people sat at it.

It wasn’t hard to tell who was in charge amongst the players. An old white-haired man sat at the heart of the group, everyone’s energy, their ears, their eyes were trained on him, waiting for instruction.

Surely, that was Ivan. Villanelle got closer. His wrinkled face was hardened into a perpetual scowl. He sat hunched over, his suit was too big, tailed for him in his prime now he drowned in it. The head of a cane rested beside him on the table, the metal had been moulded into the face of a bear baring its teeth, its eyes red rubies. His eyes surveilled his establishment while he was in conversation with the young man, who sat before him.

As she got closer, Villanelle could make out two more guards who stood in the shadows behind Ivan, stoic and watchful like gargoyles.

A woman sat next to Ivan who was perhaps a year or so younger than Villanelle. She was pretty but she presented herself differently to the other woman here. Her attire was casual, and she looked tremendously bored to be at his side, picking tuffs from the carpeted surface of the poker table. It was only because they sat beside one another that Villanelle spotted the family resemblance. A daughter perhaps.

She reached the edge of the VIP area when a man stepped forward to halt her. _‘Who are you_?’ 

She nodded toward Ivan. _‘Konstantin sent me_.’

He looked a little exasperated at her answer nonetheless he motioned for her to wait. 

The conversation between Ivan and the man was getting louder. His back was to Villanelle, but she could hear him pleading, sniffling.

Ivan was unmoved, he leant across the table, his face slackened as he spoke, _‘How many times have we had this conversation? You haven’t given me any other choice_.’

 _‘No. Please! I just need some more time,’_ the man said, reaching across the table to Ivan.

Ivan leant back into his seat and waved a dismissive hand. _‘Mikhail_ ,’ he called.

With that Mikhail, who had stood on Ivan’s right side stepped forward, gun raised.

The man didn’t see it coming, still pleading with Ivan then the sound of shot burst through the small space. Skull fragments and viscera flew. His body flew back and sagged, a dead weight in his chair, blood pooling into his lap. 

The club went quiet. The music played on, but the air was empty, the people still. 

Villanelle charted the daughter’s expression as it went from flinching shock to curiosity. 

Two men without being summoned came and pulled the body away, leaving the seat behind. It made Villanelle ponder how often of an occurrence this was. 

_'Tell his family they take on his debt,’_ Ivan said, his voice gravely.

With that, the place returned to its prior festivities, awakening in chatter.

Ivan motioned his fingers, _next_.

Villanelle was pushed forward into his line of sight. She considered the freshly vacant chair before her and opted to stand.

 _‘Sorry about your dress,’_ he said amused.

She looked down at the red splatter on her dress, the blood still sinking in, spreading stitch by stitch. She shrugged it off, it really was an atrocious dress. _‘You don’t like to get your hands dirty.’_ She gestured to Mikhail in shadows. _‘I can help with that_.’

 _'It’s not your colour anyway_ .’ He laughed humourlessly and kept a fake smile on his face as he clutched the head of his cane, grinding it into the carpet. _‘You are either lying or very late. Konstantin is dead_.’

Villanelle snorted. _‘Oh yeah. So dead_.’

His lip twitched. This stranger knowing something he didn't know enraged him. _‘Who are you? What do you want?_ ’

 _‘I want whatever Konstantin thought you had to offer me_.’

He glared at her. _‘I don’t need anybody. This is a business of trust. A family and we take care of our own business_.’

Mikhail stepped from the shadows behind Ivan again. This time the sparse light caught his features, he had a grave, angular face. He was tall, his shoulders square but all Villanelle saw were the raw burns of a nylon rope on his knuckles. 

She smiled and thought to herself, _Gotcha_.

 _‘Of course_ ,’ she said in false compliance letting herself be guided back out of the VIP section.

Villanelle lingered in the bar, letting a plan form. Drumming her fingers against the bar. She probably shouldn’t have expected it to be that easy. People like Ivan were hostile by nature but before the blood on her dress had dried, she had a plan. 

She waited until Mikhail left his post and was heading home.

She told her taxi driver to follow him. It was a short drive, ten minutes through streets Villanelle easily memorized. He stopped out the front of an apartment block across from a multi-level car park. She instructed the driver to wait. They idled as he went in, and she waited till an apartment's lights flicked on. Fifth floor, the fourth window from the right.

Satisfied, she left to return home. Well, her temporary home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably should have said this last chapter, but anytime Villanelle or others are speaking in another language their dialogue will be italics. 
> 
> Happy Killing Eve season 3 day!


	10. The Grey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle finds a way to get on Ivan's good side. Eve and Carolyn begin investigating Raymond's life.

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW**

The company Villanelle had acquired were fast asleep, the man and woman spiralled together on the frameless mattress. In their sleep, they had sealed the gap where she had lay between them.

Villanelle could not sleep. She was alight with anticipation, running her plan over and over in her head. She had laid the pieces of the sniper rifle out on the carpet of the living room, to make sure she hadn’t been short-changed, assembling and disassembling the weapon, familiarising herself with it. She was aware that if it was possible to buy a sniper rifle, be it a crappy one, in twenty-four hours from the few dollars she had left, it was just as likely she had been ripped off.

It wasn’t the military-grade weapon The Hawk would have used. It was old. A hunting rifle, its wooden body cracked and splintered. It wasn’t sleek like the gear she’d been trained with either, but it would have to do.

When she packed the dissembled gun into a gym bag, she was calm and cold. It was like a switch had been flicked and Villanelle sank back into a familiar emptiness and let it steady her.

The hall to her new apartment building was empty but even at three in the morning, she could hear voices, music playing, shouting. She didn’t bother to check if the elevator was working and pushed through the fire exit into the stairwell.

As she entered, someone screamed. The sound echoing down the concrete of the stairs like a chimney.

Nina was leaning against the wall, cigarette in hand, the other hand clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle her scream. A tuft of ash fell from the cigarette’s lit end on to her fingers, she winced and shook it off. Once she collected herself, she looked apologetically at Villanelle. _‘Fuck. Sorry. You scared the shit out of me.’_

Villanelle eased the door shut behind her, eyeing Nina’s cigarette.

 _‘There aren’t any smoke detectors in the stairwell,’_ she explained. _‘Want one?’_ She started patting her pockets for a spare.

Villanelle shook her head. _‘Shouldn’t you be with your child?’_

Nina’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t appreciate the judgement and pulled a baby monitor from her pocket. In the quiet, before she spoke, they could both hear the crackle of empty static. _‘Fast asleep. It’s the only time I get alone.’_ She examined the fizzling end of her cigarette then asked flippantly, _‘Your company gone already?’_

Her observation caught Villanelle off guard. Nina was nosy, that was good to know. Villanelle acted unfazed, _‘Fast asleep. I’m going to the gym.’_ She lifted the lumpy weight of her duffle bag for effect.

 _‘It’s a little late,’_ Nina said as Villanelle moved to pass her.

_‘Jetlagged.’_

Nina followed her down a few steps, then called after her. _‘Wait, I wanted to thank you.’_

Her confusion plain on her face, Villanelle turned back around. _‘For?’_

 _‘I know you weren’t dying to return those newspapers. He’s a dick but he’s not…’_ She trailed off; she didn’t need to finish.

Villanelle nodded. _‘See you around.’_

********

Villanelle wore two large coats, their padded shoulders widening her frame. Once she left the apartment building, she tucked her hair into a beanie and kept her face low as she walked.

Russia was just as dangerous as she remembered. Villanelle was reassured her disguise was working on the walk to the carpark, people left her alone. Not that it bothered Villanelle, either way, they were no threat to her. The danger kept a zing in the air, lit the darkness with possibilities.

She set up on the fourth floor behind an old van, resting the rifle on the hip height concrete walls of the carpark, so passers-by on the street below and in the carpark wouldn’t see her. She fumbled a little to set up the rifle's scope and tripod in the dim light. Then she looked across the street at Mikhail’s apartment building, found the third floor and counted across to the fourth window. The curtains were open, but the apartment was still in darkness.

She slid back onto the bonnet of the van behind her and fished the phone she had stolen from one of her lovers from her pocket. She found a playlist of national anthems and waited. She got through the Australian and Indian anthems before a car rolled up. She craned forward just as the Russian national anthem began. It opened like an epic, all crescendo.

When the figure got out, she knew it was Mikhail, his large form laboured inside.

A smile playing on her lips, Villanelle slid off the bonnet and looking through the gun’s sights. It was still completely dark inside the apartment, the scope magnified darkness.

The anthem kicked up in her ears, the army of male voices were interrupted by another crescendo. Despite her distaste for Russia, their anthem was good.

The lights turned on, blowing out her vision for a moment. She orientated herself, she could see an ugly shaggy carpet and a cramped kitchen with vinyl cabinets then Mikhail stepped into view.

Villanelle held her breath to steady the shot. Her heart never exceeded its resting rate. She was unshaken but also entirely unelated. His head positioned between two converging lines did nothing for her. She pulled the trigger.

The music built again, recognising the moment and it echoed out around as she felt nothing. Perplexed, she squinted through the sights again. The glass had shattered, its spiderwebbed surface obscuring her view of his body. But she had seen the shot, saw the crater in his head, saw him drop. He was dead.

Villanelle sighed and collapsing her gun. How disappointing. It was like watching a movie. It wasn’t hers, the moment, the kills, the thrill evaded her.

She decided whoever this ‘Hawk’ was, he was a marksman, not a killer.

**EVE – LONDON, RICHMOND**

There Raymond was. His hooked nose, snuggled teeth, beady eyes looking back. He was stoic. His chest puffed out.

Eve was in his house, looking up at the huge family portrait, printed on a plasticky white canvas. They were stylised, all four children, Raymond and his wife, Patricia, were dressed in all white. Their matching slacks and turtlenecks making their hair a blazing red. They looked like the Weasley’s if they had been sorted into Slytherin.

And Eve felt like someone had just hit tumble dry on the eggs she had for breakfast.

He stood very untactfully in the centre of the portrait, face stern, righteous as his wife held his hands and his children crowded near.

Eve was trying to deduce the ages of the children when she heard them their screaming from the living room. She was horrible with ages. There was a little one, that still waddled. A small one that could talk. And a medium one that was screaming and a big one that mainly looked at her phone.

Behind Eve and Carolyn, Patricia eased the front door shut, ‘Have you heard from Ray?’ Her voice was small, coy, she was afraid to ask.

Carolyn answered smoothly, a sympathetic smile on her face. ‘I’m afraid not.’

Her already sunken eyes drooped. Patricia had thin, strawberry blonde hair and a long face. She looked brittle. ‘How long is this going to take? Didn’t you get everything already?’

Eve and Carolyn shared a look. They were the first people from MI6 to pay her a visit. The Twelve’s clean-up crew had beaten them here. Eve deflated.

‘We’re just making sure we get everything. You never know what might be important.’ Carolyn smoothed it over.

‘Do you remember their names? What they look like?’ Eve persisted.

Carolyn waved Eve off, her voice smooth, calming. ‘It’s probably just a mix-up. We just had a few more questions.’

Eve struggled to bite her tongue, getting the message of Carolyn’s pointed look. Shut it. They moved into a sitting room, complete with a fireplace and reading nook. The kids stormed in; it was a mess of red hair. They scaled Patricia as she went to sit.

‘Do you think we could speak without the children for a moment?’ Carolyn asked gently. The woman looked at her wit's end. She nearly welled up at the request. She pivoted, ‘Eve, watch the children while Patricia and I speak.’

Eve didn’t get a say, she and the kids were swept from the room. Before closing the doors, Carolyn looked Eve dead in the eyes. ‘Behave,’ she warned.

Eve put the TV on, that charmed the kids enough to get them to sit. She gave the biggest one the remote. The girl didn’t notice just sat on her phone.

Eve slumped back into one of the recliners, still fighting off the nausea. There was a headache building up behind her eyes. Perhaps it was the urge to cry. Eve pulled her hair free from her bun.

Being here, in his house in front of his family made Eve want to disappear. It didn’t matter how much she told herself he was a bad person when she was amongst people who thought the opposite. She didn’t want to be seen. Their unassuming eyes scarred her surface. She was convinced she was going to fall apart, or someone one would see, recognise the killer in her eyes, see Raymond’s soul captured and screaming in her eyes.

It was the medium one who walked right up to her. He pulled Eve’s hands from her face. His eyes were big, inquisitive. ‘Miss cop lady?’

‘Eve,’ she corrected, peeking out at him.

‘Do you know where our dad is?’

Technically, she didn’t know where he currently was. ‘We are working on it.’

He thought, scrunching up his brow. The kid was smart. He knew when he was being lied to.

His lips parted to speak again when a white Maltese dog sprinted past them to one of the wood panels down the hall. The walls were lined with these judging pieces of wood as decoration, it parked itself before the closest one to Eve.

The dog whined as it scratched at the wood, deepening the groove it had already made. Eve and the kid watched it for a moment. Carolyn had only said to watch the kids. Surely, the dog was not her responsibility. It started to bark, Eve groaned, and she got to her feet.

‘Kid,’ she said, looking at the boy. ‘Can you get it to stop?’

‘Bella,’ he called. The dog looked back at him considering it then shuffled off. ‘He does that. Mum says she thinks Dad is hiding down there.’

Eve got closer, could see where the dog’s claws had scratched at a seam in the wood and wall. The kid followed. A hidden room, now that was the kind of spy stuff Eve had signed up for. ‘Did he go in there a lot?’ She tried not to sound too excited.

‘Yeah, Mum calls it his man cave. We aren’t allowed down there,’ he said it spitefully. Like he’d been told plenty for doing just that.

Eve looked back at him, ‘But you’ve been in there haven’t you. Show me?’

He paused and straightened up, welcoming the shift in power from the adult to child. ‘Will it help you find dad?’ He inquired.

Eve kept her face smooth; this was going to be a new low. Lying to a child. ‘It might.’

Satisfied he got on his knees, felt along till a mechanism popped and the flush seal of the door sprung open. Eve crept down the narrow-carpeted stairs into the small hideaway. There was a computer, a tray of booze and most intriguingly a safe.

*********

With the strained pleasantries wrapped up and the house out of earshot, Eve excitedly whispered to Carolyn, ‘I found something.’

She relayed what happened to Carolyn. The hidden room. The safe. Carolyn didn’t join her in the excitement, pushing on through the misty rain to their car.

Eve stumbled to keep up, all the while saying, ‘Let’s get a warrant, I bet you there are documents regarding the Twelve in there. Maybe even names. Raymond was smart, he would have some kind of insurance policy in case the Twelve ever did try and off him.’

Carolyn stopped walking, turned on Eve. ‘Would you bet your job?’

‘Huh?’

‘We can’t do anything with that. You shouldn’t have been poking around.’

‘Sorry, am I _not_ meant to investigate?’

Carolyn sighed, clarifying her point, ‘A collection of suspicion and an anecdote you acquired from Villanelle are the only things we have that even tie him to the Twelve. That couldn’t get a warrant to look at his stamp collection, let alone a private safe, you found unethically. As far as MI6 can prove he’s a missing man whose mistress was murdered.’

‘You didn’t tell MI6 about Villanelle killing Raymond?’ Eve asked, taken aback.

‘There was no body. Do you think you would be on this team if I had?’ She saw the look that crossed Eve’s face. Her expression softened, sensing Eve’s conflict. ‘Dig harder. Hmm, find us a link that gets us in that safe. We have to do things right.’

Her phone beeped. She fished it out, pulled it away from her face to read the screen, navigating it with a stiff index finger. ‘It’s Kenny. He has been awfully fixated on us going out for dinner. I forgot that was tonight, I’m already late.’

‘Oh, I can find my own way home.’

Carolyn gestured for Eve to get in the car. ‘Nonsense, come. Kenny loves you. Besides, we need to debrief, and I do some of my best work after a good meal.’

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW, THE BLOODY BEAR**

The next evening, she returned to the club and positioned herself at the bar. Ivan was late. When he skulked in, his cane taking all his weight he disappeared through a staff door.

Impatiently Villanelle waited for him to emerge.

‘ _You_ ,’ a security guard called. He motioned for her to follow.

She played coy, internally gleeful and walked behind him without complaint.

He led her past the card tables she had first seen Ivan at the same door he disappeared through, they wound through the back of house and into a basement. He shoved her inside and closed the heavy metal door behind her.

Ivan sat on one side of a table, barrels of beer and bottles of wine decorating the place. _‘You kill people, yes?’_

She nodded walking up to him.

 _‘Good, sit.’_ He pushed the chair out with his cane. When she fell into the seat he continued, his face mangled in a scowl, _‘One of my best men was killed. The Volkov, this fucking "Hawk”, they crossed a line. We have a code.’_ His voice faded as he fought off a cough. It was dry and harsh, when he spoke his voice was hoarse, _‘Shotting a man in his living room, for his daughter to find, spits in the face of everything we are. It will not go unanswered.’_ His bloody and bruised knuckles gripped the edge of the table. He surprised Villanelle, for Ivan this was personal, he wanted vengeance. He really thought of these deadbeats as his family.

 _‘Why do you think I care?’_ She shrugged.

_‘You want work. I want the man who did it dead.’_

_‘Do you speak English?’_

He was irritated by her question. _‘Only when I am doing business.’_

 _‘We are doing business, now aren’t we?’_ She swept the file from under his hand and skimmed the pages. They knew everything. His name. His picture. They even had a projection of his movements throughout the city. Villanelle looked again at Ivan’s knuckles; he’d been pulling some strings. The Hawk, or Alek as the file stated, was a creature of habit. Ran every morning. Meet with the Volkov strictly during the week. His weekends were reserved for attending church and visiting his recently departed mother’s grave. It was a smorgasbord of opportunity. A buffet of her murderous dreams.

Villanelle had planned for Ivan to ask her to dig up most of that up for him after she had set the wheels into motion. It made Villanelle wonder why he was calling on her at all. _‘Why the change of heart?’_

He was blunt. _‘If you die trying it won’t lead back to me.’_

She laughed.

 _‘Hitmen don’t get to retire.'_ His words were an attempt to sober her.

 _‘Assassins. Don’t be sexist. I’ll be the best you ever had.’_ She leant in. Her face a mask of consideration. _‘That said I am not cheap.’_

 _‘I guessed as much.’_ His hands slipped into his coat pocket. _‘An advance. You get the rest after.’_ Villanelle reached for it. He slid it back, and said, _‘There is a bonus if he’s dead before my boy is in the ground.’_

She smiled. _‘When is the funeral?’_

 _‘Two days,’_ he took his hand from the money.

 _‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’_ she said.

**EVE - LONDON**

The restaurant was Japanese. Fancy. Private. They saw Kenny as they walked in sitting out of the way of the rest of the guests in a booth. To Eve’s surprise and delight, Elena sat beside him. They were locked in deep conversation and a little bit of a lover’s trance which snapped when they saw Carolyn and Eve approaching.

‘Eve!’ Elena called, stood up throwing her hands wide.

‘Eve,’ Kenny echoed, confused.

‘Eve and I were following up on a lead, thought it would be quicker just to bring her along. My apologies,’ Carolyn said, taking her seat. ‘Elena. Good to see you’re well.’ She regarded Elena with a suspicious eye, her presence caught Carolyn off guard. Then her eyes fell to the menu.

Eve took in the room the tension, the juvenile awkwardness exuding from Kenny, Elena’s uncharacteristic shyness. Then it sunk in, this was Kenny introducing his girlfriend to his mother.

In the silence that followed Kenny and Elena stayed standing. They shared a look. ‘Ugh, mum…’ Kenny started, taking a seat. Elena followed.

‘I can never decide what to have. Perhaps a banquet. I’m famished,’ Carolyn intercepted.

‘Sure, whatever you want,’ he brushed the topic aside quickly and gathered himself again to speak.

Carolyn caught the elbow of passing waiter, ordering for all of them. Eve hugged her bag to her chest.

Elena tried this time, she rocked forward on her seat and said, ‘Kenny and I thought that it might be nice to all get-together.’

‘It is.’ Carolyn agreed a little perplexed and uncomfortable, she didn’t fully understand what was going on either. She shifted to what she knew best, work, ‘Eve and I visited Raymond’s family and interviewed his wife.’

‘Do you think she knows?’ Eve couldn’t help but ask. Even as she saw Kenny fidgeting, trying to drag back in his mother’s attention.

‘That her husband was cheating on the country and her?’ Carolyn shrugged. ‘It’s not something one just considers without due suspicion.’

‘Mum!’ Kenny exploded.

‘Son,’ she echoed, casting a look around the now watching restaurant. Disapprovingly she asked, ‘What is it, Kenny?’

Struck by his own outburst he took a breath, squared his shoulders. ‘I wanted you to meet Elena, officially.’

‘I’ve meet Elena,’ Carolyn said.

‘As my girlfriend.’

Unsure what to do with the weight of everyone’s eyes on her, expectant, Carolyn said ‘Yes, well done.’

‘Well done? I don’t ask for much. I just want you this once to take an interest in me, in my life.’ He was trying not to yell but his voice climbed with his disbelief.

Carolyn sat back, crossed her arms. ‘I really don’t see why this concerns me. Do you want my approval? You’re welcome to love whomever you wish.’

‘You really don’t get it, do you? I just wanted the two –,’ He cut a glance at Eve and corrected himself, ‘three most important people in my life to share a meal.’ Kenny was taking a stand, then he actually stood up.

‘Sit down.’ Carolyn chastised pulling up the drink’s menu.

Shocking himself and everyone else, Kenny said, ‘No.’

Carolyn’s eyes peeled off the menu in disbelief.

Kenny used his momentum to gather up his and Elena’s things and walk out.

Eve and Carolyn watched them go as a round of entrees laid out on their table.

‘Well, we might as well get some drinks,’ Carolyn said, separating her chopsticks.

***********

And Carolyn just kept ordering. With a blurry mind and eyes, Eve tried to count the sea of glasses in front of them. The plates and plates of food were forgotten at this point.

Their conversation had been minimal, though she pretended she was unrattled, Eve could practically hear Carolyn replaying Kenny’s words in her head. The alcohol and the day she had turned Eve equally introspective. Suddenly she found herself saying, ‘I lied to that kid today. I said I’d find his dad.’

Carolyn was tipping the last colourful remnant of her cocktail into her mouth after she put the glass down, the ice resettling she said, ‘Things are not black and white, Eve. Do you honestly think you should have told that boy you saw a psychopath slay his father with an axe?’

 _No_ , Eve thought, _because that also would have been a lie_. She ended up saying, ‘But it was still wrong.’

Carolyn sighed then shrugged, ‘People live off false hope.’

She was used to Carolyn’s flippancy about others, tonight though it didn’t sit right with Eve. Maybe it was because she hadn’t forgiven Carolyn for Rome. Maybe it was watching her friend hurt because of it. Maybe it was that Eve saw a part of herself that she hated reflected in Carolyn.

Eve pushed herself back from the table, angling her body at Carolyn and asked, ‘Why are we like this?’

‘Like what?’

‘Bad. Why do we hurt the people we love?’ Eve finally said.

Carolyn didn’t miss a beat. Didn’t need anything else clarified. She saw the way she and Eve were alike, about whom they were speaking. ‘People like Niko and Kenny, they expect us to love them the same way they love us. I will not change what I am. It’s best Kenny knows, don’t you think?’

‘There are limits, to what anyone will endure for the one they love,’ Eve insisted.

‘Really?’ Carolyn scoffed. ‘If you wanted Niko back you could have him. You could seduce him with normality. I could lie to Kenny. We can play their game for a while but sooner or later we let them down.’ She paused, her eyes went pensive, shifting from Eve’s questions to what she had been ruminating on. ‘I always wanted kids, but I never let myself forget what I was opening myself up to. It’s a cruel thing, you have brought your greatest weakness into this world and care for it. Imagine if Superman was tasked with caring for kryptonite. The wicked witch of the west, a rain cloud. The Green Lantern -.’

Eve cut in. ‘I get the analogy.’

‘If I was a man, I would get a pat on the back for having changed his diapers. This,’ she was referring to the disaster of a dinner. ‘It keeps us both strong. I don’t want Kenny to depend on me, for validation. The life I chose is a dangerous one.’

‘You’re preparing him for you to die?’ Eve scoffed.

Carolyn’s face was unsettlingly sombre. ‘Either I die, or he leaves me behind. I always thought I should have shoved him from the nest sooner. I fear he has gotten too comfortable, he’s nothing like his sister. She ran as soon as she could. I suppose I expect him to want to hold on to me.’

‘Kenny has a sister?’

‘Of course, Kenny isn’t an only child. I wouldn’t do that to him. Those people are unhinged.’

‘I’m an only child.’

‘Me too.’ Carolyn smiled at her own joke. ‘But they aren’t the companions I’d hoped.’

‘Aren’t you happy for Kenny, Elena could be that companion?’

‘It’s a fragile affair.’

‘Elena and Kenny will make it.’

‘I meant happiness is fragile. It’s another delicate piece of glasswork to add to my wobbly shelf. Another thing to break, it’s hard to not see it as another burden. If we fail, Eve. It won’t matter that he was ever happy. That we were ever happy. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t last.’ It was pessimistic but Eve understood it. She could see that in her relationship with Niko, in their current predicament, it barely mattered that they had ever been happy together. In fact, Eve struggled to remember it, the comfort he provided. Everything worth feeling to her now was raw, things that made her feel alive. Breaking everything on the shelf rather than labouring under its weight.

Carolyn took another sip; it was melted ice and a whisper of alcohol. ‘You asked me, why are we like this? It’s because someone has to be. Someone must be able to look over the edge into the darkness to hold it back. We are grey creatures in a world of black and white. They need people like us to protect the good ones. It is the way things are, there is no point fighting it. You’ll only exhaust yourself. Find your balance. And everything else will settle around you, Eve.’

**VILLANELLE - MOSCOW**

A thin sheeting of snow had settled over the graveyard. The tombstones rose out the white. The tree cover meant to insulate the mourners from prying eyes held back the harsh winds.

Villanelle was early, standing in front of Saveli Popov’s headstone, pretending to bear witness to the life of a man dead before she was born.

She couldn’t help but dress the part. Like an angel of death, she wore black from head to toe. A long coat insulating her body and the black silk dress she chose for the occasion from the elements.

Alek was prompt. She spotted him at the gate, a pop of colour against the whitening street. His long coat, a rusted brown and his hands clutching a bouquet of roses. His eyes swept the park, almost instinctively. Villanelle felt his eyes drag over her before disregarding her. He reached his mother’s grave and turning away from her.

He bowed his head solemnly then took an old bouquet of blackening roses from the foot of the grave, replacing them with the fresh bunch. The dried petals scattered as he disturbed it.

Villanelle understood the aesthetic appeal of flowers, the human need to collect something beautiful. Their connection with mourning, however, she didn’t understand. They were a gift that couldn’t be witnessed, dying before they were even given. Villanelle understood it more as a sacrifice, forcing some of the earth to die as your loved one had, making it sympathise and rot too.

Not sure how long he planned to stay Villanelle approached. It was slow, to ensure she remained silent walking across ice crystals.

She reached for the blade in her pocket. It was long and thin, resembling a needle more than a knife. It was cold in her fingers, the metal gulping in the moment. She was reminded of the knitting needle she had driven through Julien’s carotid artery.

She’d have to be quick. This was not the kind of person Villanelle wanted to end up in a fight with. She also wanted to keep it clean and impress Ivan. Her anonymity was annoying her. The way he treated her like any other assassin. That she had to take what she was given; she was a famous artist taking a ten-dollar commission.

Standing right behind him she ensnared his head, her hand reaching to cover his mouth and dragging his head to her chest to help secure him. His feet slipped on the snow as he bucked, flailed. There was a small back and forth as she fought to hold him still and he fought to get free.

Rolling his face away from her, she exposed his inner ear and lined up the long needle. She pushed it through the cartilage beside his eardrum, it popped like a straw puncturing a juice box. It was like a pressure released and his weight fell on her. She collected him in her arms mimicking an embrace.

She adjusted him so she could see his face, his was eyes were open, alert and trapped. He tried to speak but his tongue lulled, a fish out of water flapping on the deck.

She lowered him to the ground, keeping her eyes on his. She wanted to capture the feeling Mikhail’s death hadn’t provided. They were wide panicked, fighting even though his body wouldn’t respond. His limps twitched when he asked them to claw at her.

She stroked his face before grabbing the metal needle again. She fished it around a little, it glugged through the brain like it was stirring cooled porridge.

She drank it in as the twitching stopped. That spark, his life, dimming completely.

**EVE – LONDON**

‘Sorry, I forgot my key. I’ll be quiet.’ She whispered to Niko. She slipped past him into the house, wrestling out of her coat and dropping her bag on the bottom stair. She was just about to stumble up the stairs when she remembered she was already in her bedroom; the couch was waiting for her.

‘I was awake. Are you drunk?’ Niko asked, closing the door.

‘Shut up,’ Eve said, stumbling into the kitchen.

The dining room table was a mess, there were mounds of paper spread across the table. ‘What’s this?’ Eve asked, anchoring her hands on the table to keep the world from swirling.

‘Fliers.’

Eve twisted a page around to face her, Gemma’s face smiled back. ‘Oh.’

‘The school is having a fundraiser. They are collecting money as a reward for information on her whereabouts. Somehow I ended up in charge of it.’ He took the flier from Eve and let it flutter back into the stack.

‘I’m sorry Niko.’

He gave her a sigh and tried to sound matter of fact. ‘It’s what we have to do, right?’

Eve inebriated as she was didn’t miss the question he posed. Is this still the right thing to do? ‘You’re so nice,’ she mused, reaching out to stroke the stubbly absence of his moustache.

‘How much did you have to drink?’ He gave a sad smile, leaning into her touch.

Eve covered his mouth with one hand and gestured at him with the other. ‘I am serious. You’re too nice. I’m this bad person, you know. I can try all I want to be the light but I’ll only ever be a shade of grey.’

‘What are you talking about?’ He took a hold of her hands, making her meet his eyes. ‘You’re as trapped in this as I am.’

She smooshed her face on his shoulder so he couldn’t see her face. Eve wasn’t so sure she was trapped. She’d never felt more alive. Niko pulled her close. She felt him exhale against her. Carolyn was right, if she wanted if she pretended Niko would stay on her hook forever. Eve didn’t know if that comforted or frightened her.

‘What’s that?’ Eve asked mid hiccup.

Niko turned to see what was looking at, on the coffee table was a package.

‘Dunno,’ he said, as Eve untangled herself from him. ‘It was at the front door when I got home. It’s addressed to you. Weighs a shit tonne. Stress order a 10 kg dumbbell?’

Eve sank on the couch, scrawled on top of it was her name, her address. ‘Don’t speak ill of Armando’s windows. They save us a lot of money on heating.’

The top had been folded in on itself; Eve fought the cardboard to peel it away from itself.

‘Wha-,’ Eve started.

She stared at a large metal lid. Sliding her hands down into the box she cupped the sides of the gallon jar lifting it free from the box.

The fluid inside the jar was yellowed, nearly auburn in colour. Slumped into the corner of the jar was a mass. Eve tilted the jar to unsettle the clump.

At first Eve thought it was a dead octopus. Its bulbous head collapsing over the spirals of its limbs, but there weren’t enough of them and the surface of an octopus was smooth, slimy, not fibrous.

She shook it again, it tumbled in the solution, and what Eve thought to be legs revealed themselves as veins and ventricles. The black holes of the severed arteries that into its chambers. Eve nearly dropped it.

It was a human heart.


	11. Karma And I Are Good Buddies

**EVE – LONDON**

The heart looked like jerky, shrunken and shrivelled. Erin had laid it out in the centre of the metal table on a square of plastic, like a piece of deli meat waiting to be wrapped. Beside it was the jar, still filled with fluid.

Eve hadn’t slept. Her mouth was dry, and she was glazed with a light sweat. The alcohol was wearing off, the hangover replacing it.

‘Do we know if it’s…?’ Eve trailed off. The smell was nauseating. She had smelt death before, but this was different. It was thicker, paired with another scent, that was sharp and chemically and just as dizzying in its intensity.

Erin didn’t need Eve to finish. She reminded Eve so much of Carolyn when she worked, a little cold. Her eyes were on her notes as she answered, ‘The timeline for decomposition fits. Looks like the killer tried to embalm it. Didn’t work. We can’t know for sure until the DNA comes back.’

‘Is that what that smell is?’ Eve asked, her nose perpetually wrinkled.

‘No, it’s the perfume he soaked the heart in. Probably after the embalming failed.’ Erin wiggled the jar; a few unidentified chunks were unsettled by the motion.

‘That whole thing is perfume?’ Eve took the yellow hue of to the water again.

‘Who really knows. The formula is not meant to preserve, that’s for sure. We might be able to identify the ingredient and anything else in there. Isolate a brand.’ She didn’t sound confident, just relaying more busy work for herself.

Despite herself, Eve took in a full breath and the scent tickled a memory. She removed the lid of the jar and leant in, closing her eyes to distance herself from the image of the rotting heart. She drew in a breath through her nose.

The scent now that it had Eve’s full attention was distinct and unique. Unmissable. Eve’s whole body tensed like _she_ was near.

All the notes were there, freesia, amber and white cedar.

_La Villanelle._

Eve was certain, even mixed with the scent of death it was unmistakable.

This was Villanelle. It hit Eve like a freight train.

She had been so certain it wasn’t Villanelle. How had Eve been so wrong? As calling cards go the perfume she had sent Eve was louder than a weaponized lipstick rattling around her handbag.

Eve turned to Erin and said, ‘I know the perfume.’

**************

The tiles in the morgue’s small break room were steel blue. About 6” x 9”. Eve focused in on them as her breath came back to her. Erin had left her side to get the door.

‘She looked like she was gonna be sick,’ Erin whispered. Eve could hear her voice in the distance, joined by two others.

A warm hand touched Eve’s back, then Elena was bobbing down beside her, forcing her way into Eve’s eye line. She dangled a coffee in front of Eve. ‘Just how you like it.’

‘You’re a godsend.’ Eve took the cup, letting it awaken her clammy hands, too scared to take a sip yet.

Elena hadn’t stopped rubbing circles into her back. ‘When did you get home last night?’

Kenny and Erin were stuck by the door, scared to approach and supremely uncomfortable. It seemed Erin had called Kenny for back up and he had called Elena.

‘You don’t want to know,’ Eve said.

‘Didn’t sleep,’ Elena said knowingly.

‘Could you?’

‘I suppose not. You look like shit.’ Eve already knew the angle Elena was pushing, go home rest, come back with fresh eyes.

Eve gave a strangled laugh and forced herself to sit up and sip the coffee. ‘I’d look like shit regardless of how much I tried to sleep or where I am. And I’d rather be here, trying to make some progress.’

Elena didn’t look happy about it. Erin welcomed the opening to launch into what she’d been doing while Eve was clinging on to her stomach lining. ‘Alright, so _La Villanelle_ , it’s an expensive as hell French perfume. Which is good, makes it easier to trace. We’re looking at about ten bottles alone to fill up the jar they sent.’

Kenny looked at the sheet, Elena had moved to lean up beside him, reading over his shoulder, ‘Very trackable,’ he concluded. Then he looked to Eve, ‘So, it’s her?’

‘I don’t know how I missed it,’ Eve said, chewing the inside of her cheek.

‘The kills did seem a little different. But this does have her… personal touch. Maybe she’s finally lost it completely,’ Elena offered.

Eve couldn’t fathom why Villanelle would go back to the Twelve, why she would go back to this game of hide and seek. Leaving bodies for Eve like breadcrumbs. Eve had wrongly assumed they had come to an understanding that night in her house, a partnership. The blood spilled and the games proved otherwise.

Eve’s fixation with Villanelle imbued her with complexities and Eve was starting to wonder if they were all a fantasy. If killers just kill, and this was the only language through which Villanelle could speak. Eve didn’t know if she wanted to keep listening.

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW**

_‘Katya!’_ Nina called after Villanelle, who was returning from the cemetery, her long coat still dusted with snow. 

It took Villanelle a second to recognise her alias. Villanelle paused, key in the lock. She felt the weight of the bloody needle swaying in her pocket. She gathered up a warm smile and turned to see Nina crossing the hall to her, the baby held to her chest. She swayed as she walked, soothing Oksana.

Nina smiled, baring her teeth a little, _‘Could I ask a huge favour?’_

_‘What do you need?’_

_‘My ex, Oksana’s dad was meant to be here to watch her. He’s late and not picking up his phone, typical really. I have a job interview today,’_ she started, then crossed her fingers, pleading, _‘I wouldn’t ask if I had another choice.’_

Nina lifted Oksana up a little, in offering. Villanelle shrank back, the smile fell from her face, _‘I don’t do babies.’_

_‘Please. I’m begging. I’ll cook your dinner. Anything.’_

_‘I don’t know,’_ Villanelle said but Oksana was being pressed into her cautious hands.

 _‘I’ll be three hours tops,’_ Nina promised.

Oksana, who had been calm was now wide-eyed, waving her hands wildly, floundering for her mother as she was replaced by Villanelle. Awkwardly, Villanelle held her away from her body, as Nina kissed Oksana’s forehead.

Then she pressed a key into Villanelle’s hand. _‘Here, just take her to mine if she wants toys or needs a change, it’s all there.’_ Nina started to walk off when she remembered something, calling it back to Villanelle, _‘Oh! If she gets fussy just hold her, good luck!’_ She flashed an apologetic smile before checking her watch and bursting into the stairwell.

 _‘Right. Simple,’_ Villanelle muttered to herself.

Villanelle entered her apartment and the two regarded each other curiously as a stream of drool formed at the corner of Oksana’s mouth. Quickly, Villanelle put her down in one corner of the large couch, which was still the only piece of furniture in the living room beside a solitary stool tucked next to the kitchen counter.

She left Oksana there as she went to change into a patterned dress. She retrieved the letter she had started to Eve from under her pillow and went to re-enter the living room. Oksana sat in the doorway looking innocently up at Villanelle.

She sighed, gathering the child up again, placing her back on her side of the couch. Villanelle unfolded the paper and tried to find her place.

There was nothing in Russia that reminded her of Eve, but she still echoed through Villanelle’s existence. It was a constant yearning, a call to return to her. Villanelle started writing it her first night here when she couldn’t sleep, and the company of others hadn’t satiated her needs. Even when she managed to feel something, it paled in comparison to anything Eve made her feel.

Villanelle was confident Eve would find her and join her. Eve would grow tired of her life, tired of the cage Carolyn let her play in, tired of playing with Niko. Villanelle still needed to be careful, she wanted _Eve_ to find her, not anyone else. She wouldn’t include a return address. Someone could tell it came from Russia if they were watching but never exactly where.

A grubby little hand gripped a fistful of her dress. Oksana pulled herself up by it. They locked eyes. Out of her periphery Villanelle saw her other hand reach for the letter.

‘No, no, no.’ she swept her up, sat her back on the other side of the couch. ‘Sit there,’ Villanelle motioned for her to stay put.

And Oksana did for a second then her chin wrinkled, and her eyes filled with tears. A cry erupted from her that was sharper than any siren.

Villanelle tried to ignore her, finishing her sentence in an angry scrawl. Begrudgingly, she remembered what Nina said about holding Oksana. With one hand she scooped her up, placing her on her knee and tried to write with her other hand. It worked for a moment until Oksana grabbed a corner of the page.

‘Can you stop that?’ Villanelle asked, uncurling her fingers from the paper. Then another hand, wet with drool smacked the page. ‘Alright, that’s it,’ Villanelle said, put her on the floor.

The crying started again.

Few people could take a life, but any old fool can raise one. Villanelle prided herself on being resourceful. She could do this. Abandoning the letter, she picked Oksana up and paced.

She held Oksana tightly to her body, she nestled closer and the sound stopped. Villanelle kept pacing, trying to mimic the way Nina had swaying with each step. Slowly, Oksana’s eyes grew heavy and her little lashes fluttered shut.

Even with that triumph Villanelle couldn’t write, it was like having a bomb strapped to her chest. She didn’t want to wake her and be back at square one. Operation detach spider monkey began, she walked them into her room, lowered them both onto the mattress and finger by grippy finger detached Oksana from her. When her back hit the bed and her eyes didn’t flutter, Villanelle draping a sheet over her, Villanelle backpedalled out the room.

Finally, she clutched her pen and attempted to write.

There was a curt knock at the door.

‘You have to be kidding me.’ She considered letting it go but it was a miracle the first knock hadn’t waken Oksana.

She stashed the letter in a cutlery draw and wiped a dribble stain from her shirt on her way to get the door.

It was Ivan, flanked by two men. _‘We need to talk,’_ he barked in Russian.

‘Not without paying me,’ she said. She supposed it wasn’t out of the question him figuring out where she lived, she was more surprised that he had bothered.

Muttering angrily to himself he fished the money from his breast pocket and put it in Villanelle’s waiting hand.

She stepped aside for him.

His entrance was slow. The first few times she had seen Ivan, she’d thought the cane decorative, some sad reach for power but his stooped form and short steps told another story. The cane lumbered under all his weight when he reached the couch, he fell back a sigh of relief escaping his lips. Then he started coughing, without thinking he reached for a handkerchief in his pocket.

Villanelle watched him, idle by the door. In English, she said, ‘Do you want a drink?’

He nodded then waved his men off. They stepped back from the threshold and closed the door for her.

Villanelle flicked on the kettle and turned to face him, curious.

‘I know who you are.’ He was resolute.

Villanelle felt her face twitch. _That was quick_ , Villanelle thought. Playing coy, she said, ‘Well, you are in my living room.’

Unimpressed he shifted forward, his knuckles turning white on his cane. ‘Who you really are.’

‘Hmm?’ She challenged crossing her arms.

They stood in a stalemate until the kettle started to rattle and wheeze behind her. She was quick to turn it off, conscious of the baby sleeping the room over. Villanelle wouldn’t win any points with Nina introducing her kid to a notorious criminal.

While she tended to the kettle he said, 'I knew Konstantin was in deep, but I never suspected he was handling someone like you. Do you know what they call you?’ He chuckled to himself, ‘The Egg Ghost.’

She returned with two mugs, the tea dispersing from their bags. Villanelle placed his down and she took sat on a stool across from him.

‘“The Demon with No Face”,’ she added then scoffed. ‘Stupid name. I have a face, a very nice one.’

‘How many people get to walk away after seeing it?’ He expression had been imperceptible, but his lip twitched. Pressing into his cane, he leant forward, his eyes insistent. 'Why do you want to work for me?’

'Money. Boredom.’ She shrugged. ‘Konstantin gave me your name for a reason. He trusts you?’

'Yes.’ He didn’t hesitate.

‘Like family?’ Villanelle asked, leaning in.

He smiled and chuckled like distant memory had struck him. When he answered Villanelle, she believed him, ‘Nearly. You?’

‘Enough,’ she said, her answer equally brief.

He looked at her long and hard, measuring something Villanelle couldn’t perceive. She met his eyes with raised eyebrows. Finally, he sighed, as if in defeat. Villanelle watched as the rush of air stirred his nose hairs. ‘You know, why I get to exist? Why I get my club, my goons and my money? It’s ‘cause I don’t piss anyone off. You seem to have a habit of that. I don’t want that around my business. How many people want you dead right now?’

She shrugged. She could guess.

He frowned. ‘I’ll tell you what. I have a few cobwebs that need cleaning. It’s not going to be the high-profile stuff you are used to, and it won’t pay like it either. But… I’ve got enough work for a few weeks. If you do it quietly and efficiently, at the end of it you can walk out of it a rich woman. Hmm? But if people come sniffing around, I want you to know, I will not hesitate to cut ties with you. You’re not my people. Understand?’

‘You’ll pay me what I ask for.’ He laughed in her face. ‘You got someone else?’ She prodded.

His laughter dried up. ‘All the good sense in the world says I should turn you over, let the Twelve pat me on the back for bringing them your head. You take what you get.’ He thrust out his hand, emaciated and pale riddled with blue veins that looked ready to burst. ‘Do we have a deal?’

She considered it. The money might not be what she was used to, but it still paid well enough to support her lifestyle. Besides, turning him down sounded like a sure way to get run out of Moscow either by him or the Twelve.

She shook his hand. It was fragile, long bones strung together with sagging skin and expiring meat.

‘Good,’ he said in finality, pushing himself to his feet.

Villanelle stayed seated as he made his exit. Before he reached the door, she asked, ‘How long do you have left to live?’

His hand paused on the handle. His shoulders climbed and his back tensed. He didn’t answer, slamming the door behind him.

Villanelle smiled until a shrill cry broke her zeal. She let the door of her room swing open slowly. Oksana was awake, red-faced, the blanket thrown off and an unmistakable smell polluting the air.

‘Seriously?’ Villanelle demanded.

**EVE – LONDON**

Elena followed Eve and Kenny back to the office. Martin wasn’t there thankfully. Eve really didn’t need the added eyes.

Once they entered Kenny rushed to his desk, ‘I’ve been meaning to show you this. It’s the laptop from Sofia’s hotel room. It’s basically a shell with only one program on it and when you open it up,’ he strolled around so fast Eve couldn’t keep up. He pulled up a black page with a single text box, the cursor blinking at them.

‘This is some spy shit,’ Elena muttered.

‘It needs a key or code to access it. Safe to say this lady was no civilian.’

Eve grabbed Kenny’s arm excitedly. ‘You mean we have a piece of The Twelve tech on our hands? How they communicate with their assets?’

He smiled but said, ‘Don’t get too excited, it’s useless without a code.’

‘We could guess,’ Elena suggested.

‘Something tells me they aren’t too lenient. We might only have one go. They must know she’s dead. I doubt there would be anything to learn about her on here.’

Eve frowned, ‘False alarm then. No break in the case.’

They all heard the door open, a rare occurrence in this building, the whole time Eve had been coming here she’d only encountered the people she worked with.

Hugo wobbled through the door triumphantly. He had a crutch under his armpit, but his arms flew wide when he entered, ‘Tada! He lives!’

Eve held her breath as he approached. Hugo was hard to pin down, and she’d wronged him, more than once. She was surprised when he smiled and included her in its gleam.

‘What are those for?’ Kenny gestured to the crutches.

He shrugged, ‘They offered me some, I wasn’t gonna say no.’ Then he wiggled a finger at Eve, ‘You better control yourself, I have stocked up on more than my share of beauty sleep.’

‘You’re in good spirits,’ Kenny observed.

‘I won’t ever have to make up another story in my life to get a girl.’ He untucked his tight shirt showing the gnarly skin. ‘Chicks dig scars, it really rounds out my private school, preppy aesthetic. I finally have an edge that isn’t fuck boy.’

‘The full package,’ Kenny rolled his eyes. ‘I’m glad you’re back.’

‘Me too,’ Eve echoed, quietly.

‘Can say I am surprised to see you again, Eve. But I guess you got your what was coming to you.’ He poked Eve’s stomach approximately where her scar was. ‘Karma and I are buddies.’ There was a slant to his voice that made Eve believe maybe everything hadn’t been forgiven just yet.

Kenny went back to the computer as Elena and Hugo got acquainted, Eve followed.

‘It’s a long code. Too long to memorise if it changes frequently. There was nothing else found in the hotel room?’ Kenny asked.

‘Nope, Villanelle took basically everything,’ Eve said, then it struck her.

‘What?’ Kenny asked watching Eve’s face shift.

She dropped her saggy bag onto his desk and began riffling. She knew she’d put it in there somewhere, not sure when this specific puzzle piece would come in handy. She found the postcard folded in quarters in the bottom of her bag.

Kenny waited as she unfolded it. She skimmed past the handwriting, combing the rest of the postcard for a code. In fine print, along the border of it was a long sequence of letters and numbers.

She slapped it down in front of Kenny. ‘Could that work?’

He hesitated, his eyes following Eve’s finger. ‘Where did you get that?’

‘Where do you think, I didn’t understand what she meant by it,’ Eve admitted.

Elena asked dumbfounded, ‘You saw her?’

Eve avoided her eyes. Kenny typed in the code. They all waited. The stopper on Hugo’s crutch squeaking against the floor as he joined them in hunching over the screen.

A photo of Eve appeared, with the location of her hospital room in Rome. In bold beneath the brief, it read ‘Assignment Terminated’.

The office door scratched on its hinges; Carolyn entered swiftly. ‘Eve –,’ she broke off when she was close enough to see the screen. ‘Oh dear,’ she breathed.

No one said anything. Eve’s heart was in her stomach. The fact Sofia had been there to kill Eve wasn’t a revelation, Villanelle had said as much. It was different to see it laid out; her life put on a platter. It was even more confusing that she had Villanelle to thank for saving it.

‘Good to see you, Hugo,’ Carolyn said then she turned to Eve and beckoned for her to follow.

Eve’s back went stiff; Elena gave her an encouraging pat on the arm as she followed Carolyn. Eve tried not to look guilty, but she’d been caught in a lie. There was no way to gloss over how she got that postcard and from whom. And besides that, The Twelve had put a hit out on her, that made her one big liability to this investigation.

Eve’s palms cried with sweat as she followed Carolyn. She’d done it now, pushed it too far. She followed Carolyn on shaky legs like a newborn giraffe, a newborn giraffe that was about to be scolded by its mother.

She was falling behind Carolyn, who was halfway down the hall, her strides long and full of purpose. Less gracefully, Eve caught up to her just as Carolyn opened the door to her makeshift office. Eve went in first, best to get this over with, she reasoned and took the seat in front of Carolyn’s desk.

In the short walk, Eve was growing increasingly more confident that Carolyn was going to fire her. Eve closed her eyes, tried to calm her breath and prepare a case for herself. She was terrified of being sent back to her normal life.

‘What are you doing?’ Carolyn asked plainly.

Eve’s eyes snapped open and Carolyn hadn’t materialised in front of her. Eve looked back; Carolyn was in the doorway shrugging into a coat she had pulled from the back of the door. One of her feet over the threshold, readying to leave again.

‘Waiting to get scolded,’ Eve said. Carolyn’s mouth parted a little and her head tilted like an owl looking at a flashlight. Thoroughly confused, Eve asked, ‘What are you doing?’

‘There’s been another murder,’ she pointed down the hall, at the elevator.

‘Right.’ Eve stood, crossing the room quickly to play it off.

‘I thought you might want to go to the crime scene?’ Carolyn asked, confusion still, pursing her lips and crinkling her forehead. She pulled the door shut behind Eve.

‘I would. I do,’ Eve said quickly.

‘Good. Then off we pop,’ Carolyn shot Eve a concerned look as she led the way.

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW, Apartment 333**

After the diaper situation had been rectified, Villanelle stayed in Nina’s apartment. She turned over the basket of toys and sat with Oksana on the floor, her back against the couch. She switched on the TV as well, and the toys were ignored as Oksana gazed at the brightly coloured cartoons.

Villanelle’s consciousness slipped from her and she was woken by the sound of someone knocking on Nina’s door.

She scooped up Oksana. Through the peephole Villanelle saw it was Nina, with two heavy bags in her hands, fluffing around, presumably for her spare key.

Villanelle opened the door for her. Nina thanked her, dragging the bags into the kitchen, stopping to touch Oksana’s cheek as she passed. _‘Sorry, that took a little longer than I thought. I had to grab a few things.’_

 _‘Your key,’_ Villanelle said, retrieving it from her pocket and placing it on the counter. She held Oksana out and said, _‘your child.’_

Nina took Oksana back eagerly. She offered an apologetic smile, _‘I probably shouldn’t have thrown my child at a stranger.’_

_‘Probably not.’_

_‘Thank you,’_ she said as she gave Oksana a quick once over, counting all her limbs.

 _‘It’s fine,’_ Villanelle said, making for the door.

 _‘Where do you think you’re going?’_ Villanelle stopped, looked back at Nina, perplexed. _‘I promised you dinner.’_

 _‘Ah, really it’s fine.’_ Villanelle thought of the letter, scrunched and unfinished in her draw.

Nina’s smile was bright and mischievous. _‘You don’t have a choice. It’s a thank you for not killing my child.’_ As she spoke, she swayed and smoothed the soft curls of Oksana’s hair. _‘Besides Oksana doesn’t want her new best friend to go.’_

Villanelle smiled a little, _‘Okay, for dinner.’_

Nina put Oksana back down in the centre of her wasteland of toys and returned to empty her bags of groceries.

Villanelle still stood in the passage of the doorway, not sure where to put herself, she sat on their couch, Oksana at her feet and asked, _‘How was did it go, the interview?’_

Nina made a face. _‘I think well. It’s hard not to seem desperate when you are.’_

Villanelle was taking note of the food she unpacked, all cheap essentials. She supposed they wouldn’t be living in a place like this if they had a choice. _‘The father…?’_

 _‘He works … sporadically, might be the best word. Now Oksana’s seven months I figured I should look for work. I don’t want to depend on him. He’s not dependable.’_ It was clear Nina didn’t have a high opinion of him. It confused Villanelle, why have him in her life at all then?

‘ _Do you work?’_ Nina asked.

Villanelle nodded. _‘I’m a translator.’_

This lit a spark in her eyes. _‘How many languages can you speak?’_

 _‘I’ve lost count. English, Italian, French …,’_ she trailed off.

Nina was envious of this rendering of Katya’s life, of travel and little responsibility. Nina snorted, _‘I finished school, got a passport and moved to Moscow. I didn’t think I’d get stuck here. Want a drink?’_

 _‘Please.’_ Nina didn’t express what kind, just pulled a bottle of Vodka down from the cupboard. Villanelle didn’t have any complaints. _‘Where would you go?’_

 _‘Berlin.’_ She didn’t hesitate. A dreamy smile came across her face.

 _‘It is beautiful,’_ Villanelle assured.

 _‘One day,’_ she said, wistfully, a promise to herself. She peeked back up at Villanelle, her eyes ever watching her. She brought Villanelle a glass and lingered, manifesting the courage to say something, _‘I’ve been curious about you. You don’t fit in here. That’s not a judgement, you are nice, that’s all that really matters.’_

As if in explanation, Villanelle rushed to say, _‘Being back in Russia is only temporary. I’m waiting for my wife to follow me from London. Then who knows, we could go anywhere.’_

 _‘Your wife?’_ Nina let out. Her voice raised as her mind cast back to the couple stumbling into Villanelle’s apartment.

 _‘We have an understanding,’_ Villanelle said smoothly.

Nina tried to play it off, she kept her eyes low in embarrassment, moving to fill a pot with water. _‘Whatever works I guess.’_

Villanelle offered a change of subject. _‘What are you making?’_

She welcomed it, her smile warm and wide. _‘Well now, it’s a surprise.’_

Nina let the conversation lull as she focused on cooking. Villanelle cradling the nearly full glass of vodka slipped onto the floor with Oksana. They had discovered their own little game; Villanelle would build up a tower of blocks and Oksana would bulldoze it. Every time a maniacal giggle would bubble out of her lips, Villanelle couldn’t help but smile.

Nina watched them from the kitchen absently stirring. _‘She likes you,’_ she observed.

Oksana had a grip of two fingers of Villanelle’s fingers while she built another tower. She rocked back and forth eagerly, giggling. Villanelle said, _‘She’s not so bad.’_

 _‘It is ready,’_ Nina announced carrying a pot in the centre of the table. Then pulled the highchair beside her.

Villanelle picked up Oksana and hand her over. Once her hands were free, she lifted the lid on the pot, when the steam cleared Villanelle recognised the little brown balls, _‘Kasha?’_

Nina smiled, enjoying the excitement in Villanelle’s voice, _‘You’ve probably been dying for some good Russian food.’_

 _‘You have no idea,’_ Villanelle said, rushing to her seat and piling another dab of butter into her meal. The last two times she was in Russia she had been eating prison food. _‘Do you know how to make Borscht?’_

 _‘Of course. It’s a good welcome home, then?’_ Nina asked, serving up a bowl for herself and a small one for Oksana.

Villanelle grinned through full cheeks. _‘Perfect.’_

Villanelle caught Nina pouring them each another glass of vodka between mouthfuls. She rationed out her time between feeding herself and feeding Oksana. Villanelle was already on her second bowl.

Her belly was warmed with a full meal of Kasha and vodka. Nina’s whole apartment held that same warmth. It was full in a way Villanelle place wasn’t. Cosy, she realised.

Villanelle played with the flame on the candlestick in the centre of the table as Nina finished feeding Oksana, who had grown stroppy, her cheeks red. She was ready for bed. The candlestick was brass, the bottom flared out into a wide piece of metal, the shaft was a shifting scale of size, inching in and pinching out till it flared out again where the single candle rest.

 _‘It’s my mother’s,’_ Nina offered, watching Villanelle tracing its form. _‘Alright munchkin, bed.’_ Nina said, pulling her from the highchair, _‘bring my drink, would you?’_

Villanelle followed her into the baby’s room, it was like the first night she came here, dark beside the nightlight. Nina changed Oksana while Villanelle walked up to the crib.

Villanelle lifted the edge of the blanket between her fingers, reading the embroidered name again. _‘Praise be to god,’_ she said.

 _‘Hmm?’_ Nina whispered as she came up beside her to place Oksana in the crib.

 _‘That’s what it means, Oksana,’_ Villanelle clarified.

 _‘I probably should have known that,’_ Nina admitting, draping the blanket back over Oksana then tracing the stitching.

 _‘It’s a common name, I just assumed -,’_ Villanelle began, holding her drink out to her.

 _‘No, I – it’s a long story,’_ she kind of scoffed to herself. And looked back at Oksana in the crib.

Trying to be gentle Villanelle cautiously said, _‘I’ll listen if you’ll tell it.’_

 _‘It’s silly, really,’_ Nina said, her brow furrowing, but Villanelle could barely see it with just the night light.

Villanelle waited. She didn’t realise she was holding her breath. She felt her sister go quiet, as she thought it over.

She took another sip. The darkness, the vodka and the lack of Villanelle’s eyes eased the truth out of her. _‘I was adopted. I love my family, I do. But when you know something like that it always feels like there is this parallel life. You can never see but it’s always beside you, this track you nearly turned down, an echo of yourself, you don’t know. A curiosity. I know my biological parents weren’t good people, otherwise, they would have kept me, right?’_ She took a seat in the rocking chair, the ice rattled as she took a gulp. It creaked in the darkness, it took her another few seconds to speak, _‘That was good enough my whole life, ‘til I got pregnant and I had my own kid on the way. Then I had to understand it. But they were already dead. A choice had been taken from me; I couldn’t reach out if I wanted to. It was a dead-end then I found out they had another daughter, after me. My sister. Oksana. She died in prison. Through her, I saw that parallel life. And I got lucky. I really did.’_

Nina had pinpointed Villanelle’s exact emotion, what looking at Nina felt like, what holding Oksana stirred in her, a taste of this parallel life, a normal life. _‘That must have been hard,’_ she said.

 _‘It’s fine. I didn’t know any of them, if I did, I probably would have shared their fate.’_ That comment prickled Villanelle, what did Nina know about her life? _‘It’s not blood that matters. It’s love. My parents, they don’t have much, but they love me. And I know all I had to do for my daughter is love her and put her first.’_

Villanelle swallowed hard then asked, _‘Why name her after your sister?’_

_‘I couldn’t stop thinking about her. And wondering if some love or being in my place, might have saved her too.’_

_‘Survivor’s guilt,’_ Villanelle’s words came out harsh.

 _‘Hope,’_ Nina corrected. She turned to look at Oksana, the nightlight catching the tear that rolled down her cheek, _‘All I have to offer this kid is love. It has to be enough.’_

Villanelle observed the emotions bleeding out of Nina in the darkness. They spilled over into her. The anger evaporated. Her eyes blurred and she was thankful for the darkness.

  
*********

Nina only let Villanelle leave after taking a plate of leftovers. Lingering at the door, dreading leaving, Villanelle couldn’t believe the words that came out of her mouth, _‘If you need someone to watch the kid, I’m around.’_

 _‘Thank you. Perhaps I’ll give you some notice next time,’_ she gave Villanelle a tired smile.

Villanelle stood there after the door had closed, trying to cling onto the warmth of her company as cold air barrelled down the long corridor. Nina’s place felt like its own world, all the sounds of the street couldn’t reach inside.

Villanelle’s apartment echoed the silence back at her as she entered. The room was cold. She’d have to furnish this place; she couldn’t stand walking into this. She gathered up the letter, addressed it and sealed it.

While she hunted for a mailbox, Villanelle thought only of what Nina had said. The way she had described Villanelle’s early life. The way she spoke of her daughter, the pride, the unconditional love was striking.

For Villanelle, family had always been a thing viewed from the exterior, tonight she’d felt it. She understood it a little more. When Villanelle got back to her room, she halved the stack of money Ivan had given her, wrapped it up, picked the lock to apartment 332, and left the money on the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all are doing well and I hope you are enjoying the fanfic so far.   
> A good friend of mine is helping me edit the chapters now so hopefully, mistakes will be fewer and farther between.   
> Come hang out on Tumblr, my Killing Eve blog is we-are-colleagues.


	12. An Odd Memorial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve investigates the new assassination. Villanelle is a guest at an odd memorial.

**EVE - LONDON**

The kill had taken place in another mansion. Carolyn and Eve were forced to buzz in at the large security gates, surveillance cameras hung as casually as plants around the exterior. David Porter was paranoid.

It hadn’t helped. Clive led Carolyn and Eve into the basement, to his body.

The basement was immaculate, like a museum, all burgundy walls and carpet. The room was lined with glass display cases filled with war memorabilia. On the other end of the room, the walls were bare for a segment, before a large lacquered wood carved desk, it looked an antique.

That’s where they found his body.

He was naked, pinned like a rare specimen for display to the desk. He had been skewered by his own collection of ancient weaponry. It could be quite the game, matching the unique blade shapes emerging from him to the discoloured paint on the wall, where they had sat mounted and untouched for years. He lay face up, the blades rising out of him, as his weight balanced haphazardly on the oddly shaped handles protruding from his back. Daggers and smaller blades slipped between the bones of his limbs.

One sword ran in the opposite direction. Its guard kept his mouth open, as the blade burst through the back of his neck piercing the wood of the desk. The presentation made Eve think of a roasted pig served with an apple in its mouth.

He looked like a pincushion. The placement of the swords was not uniform, jutting out in all directions, any way the dulled blades could make it through.

It felt more like a sculpture than a body. It affected Eve less viscerally than the first body.

‘Nothing was taken from the body?’ Eve asked, trying to gauge the extent of the lacerations.

‘No, ma’am. Heart is there,’ Clive answered. He stood a few feet back, their shadow.

‘Eve is fine,’ she corrected.

He nodded and started the spiel. ‘David Porter. A lobbyist for a major oil company. On the surface the opposite to our Romanian feminist. Played dirty, I’d say there are a few politicians happy they won’t have to deal with him anymore. He lived alone. We’re checking the security cameras now, the man had quite the setup.’

While Eve probed Clive, Carolyn keenly watched people carrying lights into the room to help them work.

‘Why is it so dark?’ Carolyn asked. Eve had thought the same thing, her eyes were straining to adjust.

‘It’s designed to be low light. Ultraviolet lights damage the pieces. The whole place is temperature-controlled as well,’ Clive answered, excitedly. Carolyn gave him a look, sheepishly, he added, ‘I collect Pokémon cards.’ He cleared his throat, reclaiming his professional demeanour. ‘There are no prints, so far.’

‘If it is like the other kill, I doubt we’ll find any.’ Eve muttered, then turning to Carolyn she said, ‘She’s not one to be so discrete.’ Eve kept her voice low, she wanted to keep Villanelle’s name from her lips.

It wasn’t quite enough, Clive’s ears perked up. ‘You have a suspect?’

‘We’re working on one,’ Carolyn swept in. ‘Thanks for the tour, we’ll be in touch.’

Taking Eve by surprise, Carolyn made for the exit.

He scuttled after them up the stairs. ‘I think it would be best if I came down to that office of yours. Made sure everything is running smoothly.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Carolyn brushed him off, quickened her pace.

He caught up with them on the way to the door, puffing he said, ‘I’m afraid it is.’ He pointed to the heavens. ‘It’s coming from higher up. I’ll be friendly, I promise. They want to encourage more interaction between departments. Collaboration.’

Eve thanked him. Carolyn was already gone.

She jogged to catch up. ‘He seems nice enough,’ Eve offered.

‘The worst ones always do. A speck out of place, a toe over the line and he’ll have us for it. Don’t be mistaken, Eve, the ones beneath us on the ladder are the ones most willing to pull us off.’ When they were back in Carolyn’s car she continued, ‘I need you to keep that laptop off the record. The postcard as well. How you acquired it raises too many questions that we can’t afford.’

Eve was about the point out the contradiction in Carolyn’s orders, that they had to be on good behaviour but also hide evidence, when Carolyn interjected, ‘That being said, perhaps, today’s revelation can serve as a reminder of what’s at stake for you. Stick to your side, Eve. You don’t want both sides after you.’

**VILLANELLLE – MOSCOW**

Villanelle woke up to some old man’s face splashed across the news. The name Oleg Babkin was on everyone’s lips. The news played sombre music in memoriam and talked about his legacy. The collective tone of Russia was respectful, for once. And Villanelle had never heard of him before in her entire life. He looked a little like Father Christmas, white hair and full cheeks.

That day Villanelle also received an unusual request from Ivan. He needed another bodyguard for the memorial being held in Oleg Babkin’s honour. She wondered how a man could charm both the public and the underground so completely. Villanelle was above that kind of grunt work, above being a shadow in a room full of the powerful. She deserved a seat at the table, and she told him as much.

His desperation bled through the phone, he conceded to her demands and her hefty price. He must have been worried. After she agreed, he told her a dress code and a time to meet him at the club that night.

It wasn’t the money that swayed her decision but the power, the exclusivity. 

She wore a black cape blazer, that fell to about her hips. Her long arms emerged from the black fabric as she walked. She paired it with a black lacy top and slacks.

Ivan’s daughter, who he finally introduced as Stephanie was there as well. She kept it simple, a black dress, and she looked disinterested as ever.

From the Bloody Bear, they rode in a black Hummer two blocks to another club. It sat right on the line between Ivan’s and the Volkvo’s territory. Ivan explained it was acting as a reluctant middle-ground for Russia’s underbelly. The presence of the Volkvo gave more context to Ivan’s nerves.

Villanelle expected the club’s interior to be stripped back to something solemn, but it was still a nightclub. The only lights were strobes, the music beat in her chest. The biggest change that was the same photo of him from the newspaper was projected behind the stage. Like Big Brother watching over them.

‘An odd memorial,’ Villanelle muttered as they were shown to their seats, a VIP booth at the back of the venue. Villanelle grinned as she sunk into the booth beside Stephanie watching the two other bodyguards, slip back and out of sight.

Stephanie heard her. ‘It’s a safe place for these people to gather. It’s not as odd as seeing this crowd packed into a funeral home, trust me.’

‘Who was he?’

‘Who wasn’t he? Famous FSB agent turned politician turned activist.’

Villanelle made a face. ‘Why celebrate that?’

‘Oleg was a man who saw the bigger picture. He didn’t aim to destroy us, he gave us our space, carved out a legacy for us. An understanding,’ Ivan said, his eyes in the old days.

‘Who killed him?’

Ivan shook his head, ‘He just died, grew weary like the rest of us will. It was not unexpected. We woke up in a different world today, a world with less honour,’ Ivan said, his head tipped solemnly.

Villanelle looked back up at his portrait, his all-seeing eyes. His beard and white hair conjoined, all the same length and unkemptness to form a lions’ mane around his face that was only broken by his bold spot. There was something godly about it, his image, this tribute. It felt like an alternative church service, more than a memorial. There were no speeches. People danced and drank. 

The music was too loud to enjoy. Villanelle surveilled the place while Stephanie and Ivan fraternised. Ivan didn’t get up from his seat, people had to come to see him. They spoke in hushed Russian to each other, offering a firm handshake.

She watched the mourners dancing. Their inebriated swaying. She could spot the people dealing drugs, the subtle handovers. They clustered around each other, taking turns as they snorted. The Volkov didn’t miss a chance to do business, it seemed.

At the heart of the group she was watching, a tall dark-haired man did a line. She recognised him, vaguely, a dimly lit face through the crack of Nina’s door. Dmitri. She was certain, it was Oksana’s dad.

‘Who are they?’ Villanelle pointed the group out to Stephanie.

‘Nobodies. Lackies for the Volkov, groupies more like it. Working for product.’ The distaste was prominent in her voice. Everybody in these circles had a certain pride in their criminal exploits, the meth was product, the addicts were clients. It helped them sleep better.

‘Addicts?’ Villanelle clarified.

She nodded. ‘Bottom feeders.’

****

In the moments Ivan wasn’t reminiscing and making small talk, he was glowering across the room. It wasn’t a coincidence the Volkov had been seated as far from them as the space allowed. His gaze was fixed on one individual, specifically. A young fit-looking man, his chin dimpled, and his hair swept back. It was pathetic, a man who believed himself to be one of the most powerful people in Russia, scowling at his enemy like a kid in the schoolyard.

‘Just have him killed,’ Villanelle muttered under her breath, the devil on his shoulder.

He turned his glare on her. ‘That is not how things are done.’

Villanelle caught Stephanie rolling her eyes, she was just as tired of the honour rhetoric. Villanelle craned closer, leaning past Stephanie so he had to listen to her, ‘You wouldn’t even need to kill him if it offends your sensibilities. Strike him where it hurts. His wallet. His reputation.’

‘I don’t pay you to talk,’ he retorted.

‘How would you do it?’ Stephanie asked, her eyes wide, curious.

‘Stephanie,’ he warned.

Villanelle smiled, shifting her focus to Stephanie. ‘Lace their drugs. You’d only need a few people to die before word got around. Then no money, no power, no threat. Their customer would come running back to you.’

‘There is a reason you are not a leader, Villanelle.’ He creaked out of his seat, ‘I’d say we’ve made our appearance, paid our respect.’

Villanelle stayed put, her eyes finding Dmitri in the crowd again. He felt someone watching him, this time and his eyes found her. There was a flash of recognition and confusion at the sight of her.

‘You,’ Ivan called, drawing Villanelle’s eyes. He beckoned her. ‘Come with us. I have a job for you.’

She sighed, dragging herself to her feet. ‘Do you want me to put a horse’s head in someone’s bed?’

He sighed and kept quiet until they were back in the Hummer. He pulled a file from the pocket of the seat in front of him, handed it to Villanelle. ‘Albert Kuznetsov. He stole quite a bit of money from us then fled town. He’s finally popped back up. I need him to go quietly; he still has a few friends in Moscow.’ He fixed her with a curt finger. ‘I’m paying for subtlety. Suicide, whatever. But no homicide.’

‘Sure,’ she said plainly, flipping through the brief. She frowned when she read the location. ‘Bogdarnya, seriously?’

‘You got somewhere else to be? It’s a weekend in the countryside.’

‘The Russian countryside.’

‘Oh, boo-hoo,’ he mocked as they pulled up outside of her building.

**EVE – LONDON, THE OFFICE**

‘You both need to see something,’ Kenny said as soon Eve and Carolyn entered, he wheeled his chair back to his desk. ‘They just sent over some security footage from the house. Everything had been erased but this.’

It was a view from one of the security cameras near the driveway. The scene was lit in the greens of night vision. Eve squinted, moving in closer. There were a few seconds where nothing moved but the static.

From off-camera, a figure emerged, roughly where the front door to the house was. They walked right up to the camera, seeking it out. They were dressed head to toe in black. Eve sized up the form. They were as tall as they were lanky. Taller than Villanelle, Eve noted. Their shoulders were broad. The cut of the mask showing white skin and an Adam’s apple. A few short locks of hair resisted the vice of the face mask.

His eyes were two bright beams of light as he gazed into the camera through the fraying edges of his makeshift mask. He tilted his head like he was observing them too, then a motorcycle gloved hand lifted from his side and waved.

Eve could feel his grin. It was full of mockery. It said to her, _I know, where you live. I know where you sleep, I know who you love. Here I am, I’ll give you a hint._ At the same time as it said _chase me, worry about me, be scared of me, let me consume you._

Eve looked away, her stomach in knots.

The image clipped, freezing then cutting to black. With the figure gone, Eve could think again.

‘Guess he didn’t appreciate not getting the credit,’ Hugo mused.

Kenny voiced what Eve would have said if she could find hers, ‘If it isn’t Villanelle, why the perfume?’

‘He wanted Eve’s attention,’ Martin reasoned, everyone turned to him, having forgetten he was there. ‘Psychopaths need to be the best. Villanelle has quite the legacy as an assassin for The Twelve, how else would you prove you’re the better assassin? Level the playing field. Get the same woman to chase you. And do it all better.’

Eve stared at him. It was astoundingly astute and terrifying.

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW**

It was around lunchtime the next day when Villanelle knocked on Nina’s door. She had packed a bag for her job. The drive was two hours, after scoping the place out and planning she wouldn’t make it back until tomorrow. It felt wrong to leave without saying anything.

When she stood at the door, waiting for it to open she heard multiple voices inside.

 _‘Katya!’_ Nina beamed.

She heard someone inside, say Oksana’s name and the baby giggling. Villanelle’s returning grin dropped a little, _‘You have company?’_

 _‘Dmitri is here,’_ Nina cast a look back into the apartment before stepping into the hall with Villanelle, closing the door behind her _. ‘You won’t believe this, but I woke up yesterday morning and there was a stack of money sitting on the table. A lot of money. He’s the only person with a key. When I confronted him, he said it was penance, to make up for all the shit he’s put us through and that he’s committed to being a good dad.’_ Nina seemed a little sceptical, but her excitement was palpable. A dream coming true.

Villanelle’s face soured. She forced the words out through gritted teeth. _‘Where did he get that kind of money?’_

 _‘Nothing nefarious. He got a job apparently, an honest one.’_ She swung the door open behind her, _‘Come in, meet him.’_

_‘Oh no. I have somewhere to be anyway.’_

Nina didn’t listen, she dragged Villanelle back through the door.

Dmitri sat on the couch, hunched forward-leaning down to play with Oksana. His eyes snapped up, widening in alarm and recognition as Villanelle entered.

_‘Dmitri, this is Katya.’_

Villanelle wanted to revel in the warmth of her introduction. The fondness with which she said her alias. Her rage put a damper on anything else.

He gathered himself, pushing out his chest then his hand. _‘So, you’re Nina’s new friend.’_

Villanelle didn’t take it, rather untactfully she glowered at him. Nina stood behind her and offered a sickly-sweet smile of encouragement to Dmitri.

 _‘Congratulations on the new job,’_ Villanelle sneered.

Nina drifted off behind them as the kettle boiled. _‘Coffee, Katya?’_

 _‘No,’_ Villanelle said through her teeth.

He took a step closer now Nina’s eyes were off them. Villanelle considered not letting him. _‘If you tell her about me, I’ll tell her about you,’_ he threatened in shaky English.

 _‘You don’t know me,’_ Villanelle scoffed, she wouldn’t be threatened by this nobody. She was already dreaming up ways to kill him.

Oksana started crawling clumsily towards them. Her hand was reaching for the toe of Villanelle’s boot when Dmitri picked her up, he said, _‘I know you work for that old hack Ivan. And I know that you care what she thinks.’_

Nina turned her attention to them, and they both took a step back. _‘You should come back for dinner.’_ She offered a mug to Dmitri, taking Oksana back.

Villanelle could think of nothing worse. Quickly, she said, _‘I have a work thing. It’s a weekend trip.’_

 _‘Exciting,’_ she beamed.

 _‘It really isn’t.’_ Villanelle already hadn’t wanted to go, now she especially didn’t want to leave Nina and Oksana in his company.

 _‘What kind of work?’_ He prodded.

 _‘Katya’s a translator,’_ Nina answered before Villanelle could.

_‘Speaking of, I should be going, long drive.’_

Nina walked her to the door, _‘Come around when you’re back. Don’t be a stranger.’_

 _‘Stay safe,’_ Villanelle said as the door sealed her out.

**EVE – LONDON, THE OFFICE**

‘Alright, let’s figure out who this guy is.’ Eve’s hands were still shaking as she cleared the whiteboard. She turned to face the team, marker poised in hand and prompted, ‘What do we know?’

‘He’s a planner.’ Martin was the first to pip up. He was significantly less annoying when he pulled his weight, Eve scribbled it down.

Hugo called out, ‘He takes trophies.’

‘He gave the heart back,’ Kenny countered.

‘But he revels in this so much. The trophy theory just fit,’ Eve said mournfully.

‘He spends a lot of time with the bodies. Like an obnoxious amount, longer than it takes to pose and kill them. Maybe that’s his trophy,’ Martin offered. It went on the board.

Kenny said, ‘No prints. He’s gonna be hard to catch.’

‘Why though?’ Eve asked. ‘The Twelve offer good protection for their assets, Villanelle never bothered.’

‘Maybe he can’t leave any. He’s got something to hide.’

‘A record?’

‘Let’s hope.’

‘He would have killed before,’ Martin said.

Eve nodded. ‘If we are following the pattern of his current kills, it would’ve been someone he fantasied about killing for a long time. It's probably where the preparation came from, he obsesses over them. Maybe a history of restraining orders. The kill would have been violent. If they found a body, it would have made the news.’ She looked optimistically at Kenny.

He frowned. ‘You want me to try searching for his identity in a crime he got away with?’

‘If you could,’ Eve said. ‘Let’s get to work.’

Eve sat her desk and let her head fall into her hands. Hugo came up beside her. ‘I thought you would be loving this, he’s more interesting than The Ghost.’

‘This is different. He’s a serial killer. There is nothing more to him. He’s a monster. No weakness, no humanity.’

He refuted. ‘Is there a difference?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Between a serial killer and an assassin?’

**VILLANELLE – BOGDARNYA, RUSSIA**

The trip was a blur. Villanelle spent the whole drive not thinking so much as a feeling. It was a record jammed on a track and its chorus was "fuck Dmitri".

She choked the steering wheel. The fact that he had taken credit for her money, her gift. She felt he was trying to take her place. Behind her anger, the shadow of loneliness waited. Villanelle thought about how she should have heard from Eve by now. Maybe she’d lost interest.

She pulled up to the property. The cottage sat back from the road. The stonework and a puff of smoke rising from a chimney betraying it in the whitened landscape.

Villanelle pulled the gun from the glove compartment, leaving the car idling across the driveway. As she walked up to the house, she loaded the gun, screwing on the silencer. The path offered her the cover of trees on her way to the house, it provided some cover not that she bothered to embrace it, her footsteps brisk and loud in the snow.

From the front window, she could see him standing in the kitchen, steaming cup in hand.

She shot the glass of the door, then flicked the lock. Barging into the room, gun raised, Albert screamed. The mug shattered on the floor.

 _‘Did Ivan send you? Please, I didn’t have -,’_ he kept talking but Villanelle was looking out the window into the backyard. Listening to them pleading for their lives was always annoying like being forced to sit through a commercial break. Her eyes fell on a pile logs and split wood, beside it a hatchet sat skewered into a stump.

Now that might get Eve’s attention.

 _‘Outside,’_ Villanelle ordered, cutting him off.

He cut a glance outside, then blubbered, _‘Can I put some shoes on?’_

Villanelle looked down at his feet, his big toe was bursting through his worn socks. _‘You won’t be coming back in; I don’t see why it matters.’_

_‘Please, some slippers? I have bad blood pressure; my feet get so cold.’_

_‘Fine,’_ she huffed. Letting the gun lull at her side, she followed him as he put on the shoes that resembled a bear’s feet, the stuffed claws bending as he walked. 

_‘Ready?’_ she asked, wiggling to the gun at the door to the backyard.

His Adam’s apple bobbled but he nodded.

She walked him into the yard, past the woodpile then said, _‘On your knees.’_ The gun bobbled loosely in her grip as she gestured to the expanse of trees behind him. _‘Face the other way. Pick a tree.’_

He kept his hands up as he slowly and folded his knees beneath him, cringing as the snow soaked through the fleece. _‘Why?’_ He dared to ask, his voice quivering.

Villanelle tucked her gun into her belt and backtracked to retrieve the hatchet. It was smaller than Raymond’s axe. Lighter, more manageable, she played with it as she walked back to him, like a batter up to the plate.

 _‘Maybe I’ll hang you from it. Just keep looking at one. Stay very still,’_ she said, measuring a few swings at the base of his neck, trying to decide how best to grip it. The grey hair on his neck had darkened with his sweat, as it might have been in his youth. She swung.

The blade buried itself into the muscle. She felt the tendons release as she cleaved through until the stroke stopped dead, reaching bone.

He wailed, instinctively reaching back for the head of the axe. Villanelle still had a hold of the handle, she tried to pull it free just as he attempted to run. The axe dislodged and he shot forward, staggering in the snow, trying to run for the trees. The rubber soles of his slippers had no traction and he slipped, landing face-first in the snow.

Villanelle walked to catch him, she trod on his back to keep him from squirming. _‘Stop moving!’_ she demanded.

She swung again, bring it above her head and into the gash of her first strike. It cleaved through his windpipe. She kept hacking, fighting her way through the vertebrae. It was harder than Eve made it look.

The blood steamed in the snow as his head slumped, separated from his body.

She rolled his head over to face her. Pinching his cheeks, she searched his eyes. She’d heard myths about heads talking after being decapitated, even blinking or twitching. That the brain had a few moments before it died.

She wanted her face to be the last thing he saw. She could have sworn the pupils adjusted to her proximity, dialling in on her image before the muscles slackened unable to hold on.

**EVE – LONDON, HOME**

When Eve got home that night, her bag felt especially heavy. She dumped it on the dining room table and took a moment to breathe without the weight of it. Relief didn’t come, however.

She groaned and poured herself a glass of wine. She shifted some papers aside to take a seat and try not to think for once when something caught her eye.

She thought they were more of Niko’s fliers but as she slid them away, she wasn’t greeted by Gemma’s smiling face. Her stomach dropped.

There were three A4 pages. The first was a photocopy of drawing, she had the squint to see the detail, the white balance blew out the image. But in the strokes she could see built the ripped body of Adelina Botezatu in vicious detail, the doughnut was captured as well, its whimsy lost in graphite.

Her form took up most of the page but in the corners, stray details had been captured. The tattoo of her daughter’s name was rendered in one corner, as Eve remembered it, reclaimed by her killers’ hand.

It was well done; she hated to admit it. Eve had never seen her body in the water, but it felt like she had now. The image of how he intended her to be found superseded the horror of how Eve had first seen here.

The second drawing was darker, the shading more severe. The scene it depicted was fresher in her mind, David Porter mounted to his desk. The swords were captured with enough detail to display their shape, but their intricacies had been traded in favour of capturing the body. Every detail was there, the creases, the folds in the skin, all the blemishes. There were no tattoos to chronicle for David but a cluster of dots that grouped around a larger splodge of graphite in one corner. She wondered if perhaps it was a mistake.

She held it up to the light and the image yellowed and darkened revealing a mark on the back of the paper. She turned it; a brown splodge sat in the centre of the page. The paper had wrinkled with the water damage. Unnecessarily messy, he seemed to take such pride in everything else.

Her eyes fell to the last page. This one wasn’t a drawing, it was a screengrab from a surveillance camera. It took Eve a second to recognise herself in it, though the location called to her so vividly.

It was outside of her hotel room in Rome, the terracotta and orange tones lost in the black and white rendering. But when Eve looked at it, she saw it in full colour, the red of Villanelle’s outfit, the red of the axe handle, the red of Raymond’s blood spreading on the floor.

In the photo, Villanelle and Eve stood facing one another, Eve was reaching for her. Raymond’s body unmoving beside them, the axe abandoned right by his head. On the white seam of the page a messy scrawl had written, ‘ _I know what you are.’_

Breathing fast, Eve scrunched the photo into a ball. The old gas stove clicked a few times before the blue flame bloomed, Eve dropped it on the burner and watched the page shrivel and blacken.

The smoke detector started screeching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, I hope you are all still enjoying this little story. Kinda can't believe anyone is reading it, so thank you. We aren't far from the reunion, so hanging in there. 
> 
> I have a Killing Eve blog if you wanna come hang out: we-are-colleagues


	13. Let Yourself Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve is rattled by this new assassin knowing where she lives. She is more determined than ever to catch him.  
> Villanelle returns to the city. Being without Eve for so long and Dmitri entering the picture begins to take its toll on her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not really my thing to pair music with my writing, but! I wrote this listening to Do I Wanna Know? - Arctic Monkeys if you want to bask in the mood of this chapter.

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW**

Villanelle’s hands were still bloody when she was unlocking the door to her apartment. Time was a blur. It had barely been five hours since she’d left the city.

She scrubbed her hands, Albert’s blood clinging to the undersides of her nails. When she turned the tap off, the old plumbing shuttered through the thin walls. In the silence after she heard laughter. It came from 332. Villanelle could hear Dmitri’s deep voice. 

Her hands were still wet. Villanelle sat on the carpet before her front door in the dark. A strip of light snuck in under the door seal.

She tried to stay still, but she was in a frenzy, her hands picked at the carpet. Her mind raced.

The sound of Nina’s door opening, and polite goodbyes reached her.

And with a steadying sureness, Villanelle realised the opportunity presenting itself to her.

Ivan wasn’t expecting her back in town for at least another day or two. Neither would Nina. The perfect alibi had presented itself.

Villanelle rose to her feet listening for the moment Nina’s door closed and for Dmitri to be alone. It clicked shut and Villanelle slipped into the hallway.

Dmitri was halfway down it, heading for the stairs. Silently, she followed him. She didn’t have a plan. She needed to make it stop, the loneliness. She glared holes into his back. She needed Dmitri to die.

 _‘You’re back?’_ Nina’s voice came from behind her.

Villanelle was in another mindset; her hands were fists in her pockets, but it was the warmth in Nina’s tone that broke through to her. Villanelle looked back, Nina’s head was sticking out of the door, a pack of smokes in her hand, the baby monitor clamped in her elbow ditch.

Villanelle froze and listened as the heavy door to the stairwell shut. She turned back to an empty hallway. He was gone. Villanelle felt Nina waiting. Her reply was unconvincing. _‘I made it back early.’_

Nina’s smile wavered, her brows knitted as she took Villanelle in. Her face softened. _‘Is everything okay? You want to talk about it?’_

Villanelle gestured to the cigarettes, _‘Are you going to give me cancer?’_

 _‘You’re such a fucking prude,’_ Nina said before she stepped back into the apartment, opening the door wide for Villanelle to follow. The warm light from inside spilled into the hall.

As soon as she was inside, Villanelle pulled her coat off, it was always a few degrees warmer inside of Nina’s apartment. The light was still on in the kitchen illuminating a stack of dishes overflowing the sink.

Nina went to them, busying herself as she asked _, ‘So how was it?’_

 _‘Good.’_ Villanelle kept it brief then asked stiffly, _‘How was your night?’_

 _‘Good,’_ she echoed, her voice light as if that surprised her.

Villanelle frowned and entered the kitchen. She snatched a rag from the oven handle and took the dish Nina had just washed from her hand to dry it. _‘He’s an asshole.’_

Nina laughed. It was uneasy, elevated in pitch. It sounded like she agreed. She kept her eyes committed to her task.

Villanelle pressed her. _‘You’re worried.’_

 _‘I’m not,’_ she frowned at the speck on the glass she was washing.

 _‘You’re a horrible liar.’_ Villanelle knew she should be more careful, dance around the subject and use some tact to pry the truth from her. She didn’t possess the patience for that. _‘Why are letting him in? What is it, the sex? The money?’_

Nina scoffed at Villanelle’s assumption turning to face her. When she saw Villanelle was serious Nina shook her head. _‘It’s not about me._ _There is no love in his eyes when he looks at me. But when he looks at Oksana… I can’t take that from her.’_

That didn’t make sense to Villanelle. If it wasn’t the farce, the appealing lies he’d told about himself that got him in her favour again what was it? _‘He’s not a good person.’_

Nina shook her head. _‘You don’t know him. He says he’s ready to do the hard stuff. Show up. Change diapers. I have to give him that chance.’_

 _‘And this is his first chance?’_ Villanelle asked and she knew she had finally struck something. Nina’s face said it all.

 _‘This the game he asks me to play.’_ Nina’s face morphed from worry to anger. She chewed the inside of her cheek. _‘Oksana will never forgive me if I cut him out of her life too soon. And I will never forgive myself if he spends her whole life letting her down too.’_

 _‘He’ll let her down,’_ Villanelle insisted.

 _‘I know what it’s like to live with that kind of question mark hanging over your life. He wouldn’t even have to show up ever, never change a diaper, never bandage a cut and she will still love him. The idea of him, what he was meant to be. She would miss him every day. It’s not him I’m giving a chance.’_ Nina had grown sick of Villanelle’s comments and shoved the next dish into her chest, meeting her eyes and said, _‘Tell me. What would you do, hmm?’_

Villanelle’s knee jerk reaction was to cut Dmitri down. But Nina’s wasn’t talking about him. They were talking about Oksana. They were talking about their parents. She could see on Nina’s face a lifetime of missing people she never knew, who never gave her anything but her life and some pain. It was Villanelle’s face.

Villanelle could feel her mother’s flat eyes on her. Her father’s distant stare, could hear his kind words carried on vaporous breath. A childhood of wishing they loved her. A lifetime of wishing they were different.

That’s why Villanelle was here, wasn’t she, that question mark.

Nina had stopped waiting for an answer when Villanelle murmured, _‘I don’t know.’_

**EVE – LONDON, The Office**

‘I need a gun,’ Eve said to Carolyn.

They were in a stalemate. Eve paced the few feet of Carolyn’s makeshift office she’d claimed down the hall from the rest of the team. It was one of the few places to talk without three sets of ears listening at once.

‘You don’t need a gun,’ Carolyn said flippantly. She was looking over the two drawings, turning the page to get new angles.

‘He delivered these to my house! He knows where I live,’ Eve raised her voice. It didn’t stir Carolyn.

Her glasses shimmy down her nose as she looked over them to Eve. ‘A gun puts you in more trouble than it can get you out of. Besides, have you ever trained to use one?’

‘No,’ Eve admitted trying to not let it stifle her argument. ‘He’s threatening me.’

‘You told me his interest was in Villanelle.’ She held the pages out to Eve; she took them then Carolyn grabbed a lollipop from the jar at the edge of her desk. ‘On that subject, you weren’t too worried when you thought it was Villanelle sending you body parts.’

Villanelle usually used her knowledge of where Eve lived to have dinner with her and leave her gifts. Eve could handle Villanelle. It had read more playfully when it was Villanelle, an invitation to another game. This was different. She knew Villanelle's intentions, this new killer, he was a wildcard. He had no sentimental attachment to Eve, didn’t seek her validation the way Villanelle did. But to Carolyn she said, ‘Does it make this any less serious, swapping out the killers who know where I live?’

Carolyn regarded her over glasses again, and Eve thought she might have won her over. Until she said, ‘No gun. I’ll get a security detail to watch your home.’

Eve's head fell, her hands landing on Carolyn’s desk. ‘Please.’

Carolyn shook her head. ‘Any more than that and your security risk outweighs your usefulness to this team and our budget.’ She folded up her glasses, resting them on the table. ‘It’s your call, Eve.’

Carolyn had a knack for giving out false chooses. Eve snatched a lollipop from the jar on Carolyn’s desk.

‘Fine,’ she unwrapped it furiously then jabbed the candied end at Carolyn. ‘Your best people.’

‘Our best available people,’ Carolyn amended as Eve left the room.

Trying not to feel like she’d lost the argument Eve returned to the office. It was a full house today. Kenny, Hugo and Martin filled the space.

Hugo was out of his desk staring at the whiteboard, both of his brows mashing together as he thought. Eve walked up behind him and read the list of names over his shoulder. ‘Jack the Panty Ripper, The Demon in A Ski Mask, The Elite Stalker. What is this?’

Hugo spun around and flashed a wide proud grin at her, ‘A list of possible nicknames for the new killer, good huh?’

‘Not good. Horrible,’ Eve said disapprovingly and lunged for the whiteboard duster, but Hugo snagged it first.

He held it aloft out of Eve’s reach. ‘We’ve gotta call him something.’

‘How about _asshole_?’

Purely to get under her skin, he touched his index finger to his chin, considering it. ‘Well, I can add it to the board, but I don’t think it’s going to win.’

Eve threw her head back and sighed, conceding this battle as well. She was heading back to her desk when Hugo snatched the drawings from her.

‘What are these?’ he asked rifling through them.

‘The _asshole_ left them for me,’ Eve said. Kenny’s wheeled himself over, peering at the pages as well. ‘Any chance we could pull any prints from it?’

‘It’s a photocopy,’ Hugo said. He rubbed his finger on the page to double-check. ‘The white balance is off too; he probably did that to obscure any prints left by the graphite.’

Upon hearing this Kenny expression dampened and he delivered the bad news, ‘Probably not. Sorry.’

Eve flipped the drawing of David Porter over in Hugo’s hand, to the weird brown stain, ‘And this?’

Hugo burrowed his face into the paper, he took a big sniff before his tongue jutted out to lick the mark. ‘It’s just a coffee stain,’ he said, proudly.

Disgusted, Eve snatched the pages back. ‘What the hell, Hugo?’

But he wasn’t listening, he turned back to the board. ‘Oh, I’ve got it. The Picasso Killer!’

‘It’s better than the Crispy Screme Killer,’ Kenny conceded.

****

The security footage of the killer made one thing clear to Eve; Villanelle really was gone. Even this killer was trying to draw her out of hiding.

The moment Eve got back to her desk, she squared her shoulders to hunch in front of her screen to block Martin’s view as she searched the international database for flamboyant kills. She scanned Villanelle’s favourite countries and cities with the most fervour. They were all quiet.

She widened the search and it opened a sea of headshots, suspected suicides, and poisonings. Eve was looking for unclaimed kills, preferably where a woman was sighted. Anything notable, anything loud.

There had been a particularly noisy kill near Moscow, Eve nearly skipped past it, she knew how much Villanelle hated Russia, but a few words jumped out at her, “hatchet” “decapitation”. She clicked the file, her eyes widened as she skimmed, “the head was left displayed in the victim’s bed”.

It was a recent kill, from just the day before. Feeling like she was on to something, Eve kept the search to Moscow. There were a few hits performed by unknown assassins with suspected mob connections, they didn’t look very Villanelle - shootings and strangulations. One, however, did scream her name.

A man was found dead at the foot of his mother’s grave. There was witness testimony that reported seeing a blonde woman comforting the man. The woman was nowhere to be seen when the body was discovered.

It was Villanelle. Eve just knew it. She wanted to pour over the files but there were too many eyes here. Martin watched her like a hawk and Hugo took any chance to get her riled up. She’d have to print the cases to review them properly later, she wanted to keep this from the others. The printer sat right on the edge of her desk, right before the whiteboard for everyone to use. The machine roared to life, rattling that table as it loaded the first page. So much for subtly.

A moment later, Hugo perched on the rickety edge of Eve’s desk. She looked up from her screen. ‘You mind?’

He ignored her. ‘What are you printing?’

‘Some international hits. We can’t stop looking for The Twelve because one assassin is running amuck,’ she shrugged her shoulders trying to exude nonchalance.

‘Hasn’t stopped you before,’ he said, pinching a freshly printed sheet from the tray. His eyes widened, ‘Jesus, that’s brutal. Even for Villanelle. It is Villanelle, isn’t it?’ He turned it to face her, it was the crime scene photo of the man’s head sat in the centre of his bed, his pillows propping him up. A bloody trail spoiled the white quilt cover.

He handed the page back to her and while Eve took it in Hugo swivelled behind her to look at her screen. As he scrolled the file he said, ‘It’s a bit _Godfather_ to me. Axe murder in a cabin with a side of decapitation.’

‘Godfather?’ Eve asked.

‘ _The Godfather_ … the movie. The victim’s a Russian mob guy.’ Eve’s expression remained blank. ‘Oh, don’t tell me you haven’t seen it, Eve?’

‘Made any progress on your actual job today, Hugo?’ Eve asked.

‘I need a little break; I’ve used up all my creative juices.’ He pouted, perching on the edge of her desk again.

‘Can you recharge them somewhere else?’ Playfully shoved him from her desk.

Hugo was about to retort when Martin stepped between them. Hugo made a face that said, "good luck" and backed away.

‘What is it, Martin?’ Eve asked dryly.

He peeled down the edge of the pages Eve was holding, tilting his head to read them. He played it off, acting confused. ‘Do you think it was The Twelve?’

‘No.’ Eve’s tone was blunt.

He smiled at her. She was sure he meant it to be sweet, reassuring, understanding even. She wheeled her chair back a few inches as he leant in and softly said, ‘I know who you think it is. And maybe you’re right. She’s just trying to get your attention. Don’t let her, Eve. If it isn’t the Twelve, what do we do?’

In a dull mantra, Eve echoed him, ‘Throw it out.’

‘Good.’ He lit up with pride and took the warm freshly printed sheets from the tray. Then he reached for the ones in Eve’s hand. He yanked them free as she scowled at him.

He dropped the pages into the bin at the edge of his desk. Eve didn’t even have time to process that when Carolyn walked in the room.

‘The Picasso Killer, not half bad, Hugo,’ she announced approvingly.

That was it. The last straw.

Eve stood bolt upright, repacking her bag. ‘I’m going to check in with Erin about Porter’s body.’

‘Surely, you can wait for the report,’ Carolyn said but it didn’t slow Eve.

Hugo swivelled in his chair watching her go, and called out, ‘Seducing another younger colleague are we, Eve?’

‘Shut it, Hugo,’ Eve said before slamming the door behind her.

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW, The Bloody Bear**

Villanelle strode confidently into the club, ready to waltz past the guards to collect her praise and pay from Ivan. She wore an oversized grey chequered suit with heavy-soled boots.

But as she walked past the bar a voice said, ‘He’s not very happy with you.’

It was Stephanie. She’d pulled a stool up to the bar and sat cradling her glass. Villanelle stopped and backtracked to lean beside her on the bar with a cocky grin. ‘Really?’

Stephanie didn’t look up. A whisper of a smirk on her lips. ‘My father isn’t one for games.’

Villanelle scoffed. ‘He doesn’t have a sense of humour.’

Stephanie nodded in agreement. ‘He’s old-school. Honourable and discreet. He likes to act like we aren’t living off blood money.’

‘Honour is overrated,’ Villanelle muttered.

‘Villanelle!’ Ivan bellowed; his pale face was sticking out from the door that led to the back of house. He waved his cane at her.

Villanelle sighed, pushing herself off the bar, swinging her hands into her pockets.

‘Good luck,’ Stephanie said, tipping her drink to Villanelle.

She felt the rage steaming off of him as they walked to the private room. He waited for her to take a seat before he slapped the photo of Albert’s decapitated head onto the table.

‘What is this?’ He demanded.

A drop of spit flung on to Villanelle’s cheek. She slid the photo in front of her, cocked her head, ‘It’s a beautiful kill. The person who did this must be worth a lot.’

He flung the photo from the table. It landed in a puddle. He shook a stern finger at her as he spoke, ‘This is not a joke. I’m not your friend, Villanelle. I asked you to do a job and you disregarded me.’

She leant back in her chair; it wobbled a little threatening to collapse. ‘Suicide is boring.’

 _‘Either you play by my rules or you don’t get to play at all.’_ In his fury he slipped back into Russian.

She swatted his pointer finger out of her eye-line. ‘You need to relax.’

The blood vessels near his eyes only bulged further and with another shower of spit, he said, _‘This kill is a challenge to all of our enemies. An invitation to war.’_

Villanelle made a face, wiped her cheek. ‘Are you going to pay me or what?’

He glared at her for a moment. She watched his breathing go ragged. Through gritted teeth, he said, _‘Get out of my sight.’_

And like that the men outside opened the door, ready to drag her out of there kicking and screaming.

Villanelle scoffed and got to her feet, glancing back at him and said, ‘You are not a bear, Yezhov. You are a scavenger. And this is as high as you can get feeding off scraps,’ she opened her arms to the musty damp room.

He cracked a cruel smile. _‘And what? You think you are a fearsome predator, when all you do is hunt for others.’_ The vulgarity with which he threw the words at her sent him into a coughing fit.

She watched his eyes go bloodshot as the coughs racked him. He leant over the desk to keep from falling over, his breaths a dry wheeze.

Strong hands took fistfuls of her jacket to edge her out of the room, she shoved them off. She walked herself out, with them as her brisk shadows.

Stephanie watched her go.

**EVE – LONDON, Home**

It was evening, past both their working hours when Eve buzzed the entrance to Erin’s work.

Her smile was warm as she let Eve in. The setting sun awakening the lighter hues of brown in Erin’s irises.

‘I missed you at the crime scene,’ Eve said shrugging out of her coat.

Erin gave a sigh of frustration. ‘There was a whole “swords in, swords out” fiasco about transporting the body. It’s hard enough to catalogue one entry wound and weapon let alone the armoury in his body. It’s probably best you didn’t see me.’ Erin threw a glance back at Eve as they proceeded out of the doorway. ‘I’ve finished the autopsy if that’s why you’re here. I haven’t finished the report yet.’

‘It’s not exactly why I’m here,’ Eve admitted. ‘I have a weird request, actually.’

Erin raised an eyebrow and grinned, intrigued. ‘How weird?’

****

‘Is it helping?’ Erin asked as she hauled in two straining plastic bags of takeout.

They sat in the autopsy viewing room, their collection of notes and the drawings were littered across the desk. As Erin unloaded the bags it was converted into a buffet table.

David Porter’s body was on the other side of the glass. A modest square of fabric had been laid over his junk as the severe lights of the theatre beat down on his body. Against the white of his skin, the numerous lacerations looked like black voids in his pale skin.

‘Too early to tell,’ Eve said, pinching a spring roll before putting the container on the desk.

‘In my experience bodies don’t just grow more evidence,’ Erin smirked.

‘The office is a circus. I can think here,’ Eve admitted. ‘Apart from his drawings, that body is the only real scrap of evidence he has left behind.’

‘You know, I haven’t ever read the rules, but I bet I’m breaking a lot of them by letting you hang out here.’

‘That’s why I bought your silence,’ Eve gestured to the food.

‘Ah, is that what this is?’ Erin smiled then asked, ‘Beer?’

Eve remembered the morgue’s bar fridge and thought, _fuck it._

Over the hiss of Erin uncapping the beers, Eve asked, ‘Why dead bodies?’

Erin shrugged. ‘I was smart enough to get into medicine but not nice enough to practice it. Plus, I can’t kill these guys.’ She tapped the lip of her beer to the glass screen.

Eve looked at David’s body again. His mouth and eyes were agape, there was no pretending he was asleep. ‘They don’t creep you out?’

‘They are quiet company. Maybe a little smelly and leaky but the living are capable of much more cruelty and vulgarity.’ Eve got the sense Erin didn’t like people much. It was why Eve was so confident Erin would still be here after hours. 

Around a dumpling, Erin added, ‘I could ask you the same thing, you spend just as much time think about death as I do.’

It was Eve’s turn to shrug as she washed down some rice with her beer. It foamed, mingling with the grains in her mouth. The bodies didn’t bother her, she knew they were empty. It wasn’t about the shell; it was about the person who had done it. It was about his fingerprints, his touch, his intentions. The bodies had become messages. It was what they were trying to say and what she couldn’t decode that truly unnerved her.

It was this killer who scared her. The standoff with Carolyn wasn’t about getting a gun. Not really. Eve just needed one hand on the wheel, some way to control her fate. So far, he was winning. He knew where she lived. The fact she was alive was a power play. She was alive because he allowed it. He was so confident she wouldn’t catch him, he let her live and left her a gift. She was being made a fool of.

That’s why Eve was here, she needed something. She needed a win.

Eve pivoted, ‘What’s your sense of it?’

‘He’s a sicko,’ Erin said simply.

‘That’s not news.’

‘He isn’t done.’ Her voice was sure when she said, ‘But you’ll catch him.’

Eve laughed down the neck of the bottle, it echoed back at her. ‘I couldn’t even catch the last one I found.’

Erin’s foot caught the lever on Eve’s chair, turning her so they were face to face. ‘He’ll make a mistake somewhere. We talk about him being meticulous, a planner, and he can plan all he wants, life doesn’t care. It’s like in _Jeopardy!_.’ Eve rolled her eyes. ‘Hear me out, you’ll never know every question, every answer, every category. All you can do is stack the odds in your favour, minimise the risk. But you can never be perfect. The game he’s playing is higher stakes than yours. You’re the house, he’s the gambler. You’re looking for stains, he had red hands. You’ll get him.’ She sounded so sure, brazenly confident, yet calmingly so. Like she was waiting for nightfall rather than a miracle.

Erin was ruining the pity party Eve was trying to throw herself. Eve found herself smiling as she moved a container of fried rice off the drawings ready to take another look at them.

Erin smiled into her dumplings and said, ‘You’re welcome.’

Eve held the drawing of David Porter up against the glass, so it sat right next to the body, the artwork next to the reproduction. The images weren’t that different, obviously, the real body was no longer run through with swords but what Eve had seen as dramatic lighting, harsher lines and darker shadows in the drawing matched the body’s current depiction. They had looked so out of place when she compared it to her memory of the scene.

She compared it to the drawing of Adelina’s. There it was naturally, evenly lit and matched the lighting Eve remembered from the pool room.

The basement where they found Porter had been so dark, Eve remembered struggling to view the scene. But in the drawing, not a detail was lost. These shadows couldn’t be artistic license.

Eve looked again at the industrial rectangles of light Erin had position over the body. How Eve could match every freckle and the few hairs that curled around his nipple to the drawing.

‘How much of the house did forensics sweep?’ Eve spoke up.

‘It’s a big house. We focus where we know the killer went. He took Porter from his living room to the basement. Entered through the side door, went to the surveillance room then left. That’s a big area on its own.’ Erin shrugged focused on her food until she looked up at Eve. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘He had to light the body so he could draw it.’ Eve looked back at the drawings, the care taken in every stroke and said, ‘He needed this to be perfect. This is his trophy.’

Eve couldn’t help but hope that Erin was right. That he’d prepared the scene, the kill, the art but hadn’t accounted for the lighting. A detail slipped through his fingers. He would have had to use something from within the house.

‘He got a light from somewhere else in the house,’ Eve grew surer the more she thought.

‘So?’ Erin tried to follow. And asked, ‘You’re hoping he left prints?’

‘He’d just have to adjust the light once without thinking, without wiping it.’ Erin looked skeptical but Eve’s grin was radiant. ‘Who draws with motorcycle gloves on? I’ll take the chance.’

Erin couldn’t help but return it. ‘I told you. You’d figure something out.’

Eve whipped out her phone and furiously typed a message to Kenny, letting him in on her revelation and that they needed to examine the portable light sources in the home.

A bulk of curls fell in front of Eve’s face as she concentrated. Without thinking Erin reached out, tucking the locks back behind her ear, her finger sweeping Eve’s cheekbone.

The intimate action didn’t go unnoticed. Eve looked up at her, eyes all bright and wide. Erin was startled, but her gaze was heavy with longing. Her hand lingered in Eve’s hair, as her eyes flicked to Eve’s lips.

The kiss was soft, shy even.

Erin’s lids eased open. After reading Eve’s expression, she froze in place. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m married.’ Eve went to hold up her wedding ring. It was missing. Eve had forgotten she’d stopped wearing it, she sat on her hand instead.

Erin didn’t need the proof. She was horrified. Her head fell in her hands. She muttered, ‘Oh god, I knew it was too good to be true.’

‘Erin -,’ Eve tried to interrupt.

Erin peered out of her fingers at Eve, her eyes watery, ‘Are you even interested in girls?’

‘I-,’ Eve started but she didn’t know what to say. Erin certainly wasn’t calling for Eve to discuss her crisis over a certain female assassin. She was asking about them. Eve stayed mute.

Taking in Eve’s stunted expression Erin started banging her head into her hands, ‘I always do this. I’m a fucking idiot.’

‘Please, Erin. Stop,’ Eve touched Erin’s face trying to get her to meet her eyes.

Erin flinched back and stood up; the chair wheeled away from her as she started clearing Eve’s things from the desk. ‘I think it’s just best if you go. This is unprofessional. I shouldn’t have let this happen.’

After gathering everything up in a messy bundle Erin held the paperwork out to Eve. She avoided Eve’s eyes, her voice pleading, ‘Let’s never talk about this again.’

Reluctantly, Eve took the papers back and let Erin see her out.

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW, Apartment 333**

That night she dreamt of Anna. At first, it felt more like a memory. They were together in Anna's bed, naked, in the thick of it.

As usual, Oksana was hungry for her, every kiss an attempt to devour. She remembered that feeling so well, a frustration, a thirst, an impatience. She could never satisfy the feeling before Anna would shoo her away again and welcome her husband back into their bed. It drove Oksana mad never having all of her.

Anna’s soft moans unfolded into unbridled pleasure. Her nails carving trails on Oksana’s back, breaking the skin. Oskana kissed her way up Anna’s neck and answered with a bite.

‘Stop,’ Anna erupted. The hands that had pulled Oksana ever closer pushed her back.

Anna ran to her nightstand, examining her neck, tracing the indent left by Villanelle’s teeth as the flesh bloomed into a bruise.

Villanelle watched Anna turn back to scream at her, the words never reached her. Then they were sitting together on the couch, holding hands, a French movie was playing. The lock flicked and the front door creaked, Anna withdrew her hand.

The nightmare played the greatest hits of Anna’s rejections. Oksana reaching for her as she looked over Max’s body. Anna turning away tearfully.

‘Anna.’ Villanelle reached for her again.

Eve turned back in Anna’s place. Her eyes brimming.

Villanelle’s fingers grazed Eve’s wrist. Eve stepped back, shaking her head, a tear slipping down her cheek and splatter on her turtleneck.

Void of feeling, her body no longer her own, Villanelle watched her hand raise as Eve turned from her.

_Stop her. Kill her. Mark her._

The gunshot woke her.

**EVE – LONDON, Home**

The house was empty when Eve got home. She welcomed it. She’d lost track of the days. Lost track of Niko.

She retrieved the letters from the doormat. It was a collection of plastic windows addressed to her and Niko as Mr and Mrs Polastri. How strange that felt now.

The texture of the last envelope was different, expensive, fibrous. Eve’s name alone was written in pen on its front. She turned it over, there was no return address, but the postage stamps marked its origin as Moscow. Her heart skipped a beat, then she was ripping at the seal.

The letter wasn’t signed, it didn’t need to be, Eve knew it was Villanelle. It was all her, from the fantastical language to the handwriting.

Eve found herself getting infuriated as she read, the letter was vague, Villanelle offered no location, no explanation for why she was gone, no apology. It was apparent she hadn’t given much thought to the life she’d left Eve in and all the foes who were lining up to take their shot.

Villanelle offered only seductions and promises that they would see each other again. She was asking Eve to chase her, to come and find her.

Eve was past the point of running. She knew that wasn’t her choice when she tried to leave Villanelle she was stopped in her tracks when she tried to run from Carolyn, she was only enslaved. She’d missed her chance. She wondered which of the many moments had been her last true chance to run. Was it when Bill died, when Niko begged her to stop or had Eve been doomed the day they laid eyes on each other in that bathroom?

Eve’s feet were cement bricks. She was going to stand and fight. Fight this asshole, fight the whole of the Twelve if she had to.

Villanelle’s letter, the distance, reminded Eve how alone she really was.

Villanelle signed off the letter with, _did you get my gift?_ Then clearly not trusting Eve she specified, writing only, _the wardrobe_.

Eve was in her bedroom in a flash. She was only ever up here now to get a change of clothes, which didn’t happen frequently enough. One of her coats was laying on the bottom of the wardrobe, its thick fabric displacing the shape of something beneath it. Eve pulled it off to reveal a bright red box, she opened it slowly.

Inside the box, concealed by the first layer of tissue paper was a card, decorated with the familiar flowing letters of Villanelle’s handwriting. It read, _let yourself go_.

Goosebumps broke out along Eve’s neck. She closed her eyes and she heard Villanelle purr the words to her through the crackling of her earpiece. Eve probably should have guessed what was going to be underneath the next layer of tissue paper. She was greeted by an array of silicone. The fact they were sex toys was unmistakable, however, what each did was a mystery to Eve.

The spell snapped. Villanelle didn’t get to do that. Snorting, she threw the letter into the box, covering it all up.

****

Her anger made her hungry. She thought mournfully of all that food probably growing cold on Erin’s desk. Eve was already bad at cooking, so cooking while mad was a car crash. But it was a task that demanded all her attention.

Across from her at dinner, Niko skewered a piece of burnt chicken and tried to pick some of the blackness of it before putting it in his mouth. Around the dry mouthful, he asked, ‘Do you think this is going to win me back?’ His tone was joking.

Eve wanted to laugh and keep things light like he was trying to, to keep things civil between them, instead she confessed, ‘I’m trying.’

_Trying to be good. Trying to be normal. Trying to stay here with you. Trying to do my duty and catch this asshole._

It felt like he heard all of that when he reached out and touched her face, his eye contact lingering. ‘I know,’ he assured her still chewing the chicken. ‘You look tired. Maybe you should sleep in the bed tonight?’

Eve’s mouth flung open.

‘Just to sleep.’ He was quick to clarify.

Eve was relieved and smiled at him. ‘I think I need that.’

****

It didn’t feel like her bed anymore. Eve couldn’t sleep.

She would close her eyes feel the pressure of Erin’s lips on hers.

Eve lay there, looking into the darkness with Niko snoring dependably beside. She couldn’t stop thinking about that letter. That box. About Erin. Her underwear was slick with her own wetness. She peeled herself from the sheets and opened the wardrobe again, she could hardly see, she shifted the coat and opened it again. The letter and the card lay on top, by the light of her phone she read them again, she heard Villanelle saying each word.

One of Niko’s snores ground in the darkness and snapped her fervour. She turned off her light as the snoring stopped.

‘Eve?’ Niko asked the darkness.

She snatched a cardigan from the wardrobe and closed the door. ‘Work called. I’ve got to go.’

She threw on some pants and Niko rolled back over. She needed to get out of this house.

She ended up at Erin’s door. It was a small townhouse, stairs led to the narrow front door.

‘Really, Eve?’ Erin blinked at her when she opened the door. She was wearing Star Wars pyjamas, little R2 D2s were printed across her pants.

It was clear Eve had woken her up, but her hair was unaffected. The scoop of her shirt was lower than what she wore at work, and Eve could see where the birthmark on her neck continued down, blossoming on her chest. Eve could hear the chime of a cat wandering in the long dark hallway behind Erin. Eve couldn’t help but smile at this glimpse into Erin’s private life, into her home.

‘It’s three in the morning,’ Erin said, watching Eve just staring up at her. She sighed and moved to shut the door.

‘Just wait, for a second,’ Eve leapt up two of the steps, stopping just shy of the last one. ‘I need to say something.’ 

Erin frowned but the door stayed open.

Eve took a breath. ‘My marriage, it’s been over for a while. I think I… I just needed to pretend it wasn’t. That everything was fine, that I could go back… be normal.’

‘Okay…’ Erin trailed off, she looked uncomfortable. ‘That sounds like something you should tell your husband. Your therapist. Not me.’

Out of words, Eve climbed the last step, eliminating the height difference and kissed her. This one wasn’t slow, it wasn’t shy.

‘Oh,’ Erin managed when their lips parted, a little breathless. ‘Well, yeah, that does concern me.’

Erin’s eyes bored into hers. Aglow with admiration and disbelief. She was about to speak when Eve smothered her lips with her own. Eve walked Erin back into the darkness of her home, out of the street.

Eve was ravenous, insatiable. Erin did her best to follow, she couldn’t quite match Eve’s intensity, every scratch, every bite.

As they shed their clothes, Eve fought, grappled to keep her mind in the moment. To focus on that hands that grabbed her, that touched her. To look only into the dark eyes that worshipped her. To hold Erin in the forefront of her mind but when she listened to Erin’s breath hitching in the darkness it was Villanelle’s moan she heard. 

And Eve heard herself whispering, ‘Let yourself go.’

Erin came undone beneath her.


	14. I Love K-pop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve makes a breakthrough in the case, pursues a way to contact Villanelle. While, Villanelle is approached by Stephanie to handle a job for her.

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW, APARTMENT 333**

Villanelle was still rattled by her dream. She didn’t ponder its meaning, just aimed to shake the pieces of it that clung to her. It was hard when Villanelle had nothing to do, she was out of work and she’d left Dmitri’s fate pending for now.

She didn’t feel comfortable letting him live, but her conversation with Nina had given her pause. This was another Niko situation; another Max. Killing Dmitri wouldn’t yield the results she wanted it to. As much as she hated it, he was woven into Nina and Oksana’s lives, she couldn’t extract him without harming them. And Villanelle didn’t want to hurt them. It went beyond a fondness, a possessiveness. She was protective of them.

And there was Eve. When Villanelle had been busy it was easier to ignore, to rationalise Eve’s silence. It was a tedious thing, waiting for Eve to drop her old life completely, to join Villanelle. She hoped that her letter would stir Eve.

Villanelle pushed aside her worry that Eve had forgotten about her with the knowledge that Carolyn had intercepted her messages once before. Who’s to say Eve ever got her letter? That Carolyn wasn’t meddling again?

Armed with a new strategy and clinging to this rationalisation. She sat down to write Eve again. She’d gone to great lengths to choose the best postcard. The glossy image on its front was of one of Villanelle’s favourite paintings. She’d first seen it on that fateful trip to Vienna.

The painting depicted the severed head of Medusa, as dying snake uncoiled from her hair. The open staring eyes reminded her of Albert’s. The painting captured the same frozen mask of shock. It wasn’t subtle, but Villanelle was growing impatient.

She sat on the floor, keenly switching between the _English to Korean_ and _Russian to Korean_ textbooks to better understand the nuances of the language. She translated her brief message as she went. That was her big plan to get it past Carolyn.

Just as she’d managed to find a groove there was a knock at her door. After a deep exhale Villanelle answered it.

Stephanie leant in the doorframe. Villanelle peered behind her. She was alone.

‘Learning Korean?’ Stephanie asked, adopting English and gesturing to the book Villanelle held open to the translation for “ _miss_ ”.

‘I love K-pop,’ Villanelle said dryly, slinging the book onto the couch.

Stephanie invited herself in and took in the bare-bones of Villanelle's apartment. She did a twirl in the middle of the living room, letting Villanelle see the manila envelope tucked under her arm. ‘I like the rug,’ she said, sliding her flats through a brown shag.

With a huff, Villanelle closed the door and asked, ‘Are you going to get to the point organically or do you want me to ask you why you are here?’

Stephanie smiled. She was enjoying this. ‘I have a job for you.’

Villanelle snorted. ‘I don’t work for you.’

‘Hmm. How is unemployment?’ She smirked.

‘It's great. What would daddy think, hmm, about you going behind his back?’ Villanelle mocked, pouting her lips.

Stephanie’s face grew serious, she stood a little taller. It just made Villanelle realise how short she was. ‘You’ve seen my father, he’s fragile. The right gust of wind could blow him away. It will all be mine when he dies. But I’m not one to wait for what I want.’

‘So, you’ve come to ask me to get into trouble for you?’

‘I’ll pay you double.’

Villanelle scoffed. ‘Paying for my silence?’

Stephanie held out the envelope. ‘And for you to make it hurt.’

Villanelle smiled as she took it. She could do that. The envelope held a photo of the target, Adam O’Brien, along with a bio and a key card for his penthouse. Villanelle pretended to look them over a little longer, playing the part of professionalism. The details didn’t matter, Villanelle could do it.

‘Consider it done.’

**EVE - ERIN’S PLACE**

Eve woke in an unfamiliar state of comfort. She was sprawled wide, not contorted to the shape of her couch. She stretched and groaned, trying to gain her bearings and her hand bumped into Erin’s, who looked dead to the world until her hand moved to interlace their fingers together in good morning.

The comfort was fleeting. Eve’s eyes widened when she noticed the potency of the light streaming in and that she’s woken to the absence of her alarm clock.

‘Oh shit.’ Eve reached for her phone. It was eleven. She was so late. A wall of texts from Kenny and Carolyn asked where she was.

As Eve was typing a frantic response, Erin sat up beside her. ‘Take the day off,’ Erin said around a yawn, leaning into Eve.

‘I can’t,’ Eve said, her eyes on her phone.

Erin swung Eve’s face to look at her. Eve’s eyes didn’t break from her screen. Then Erin pressed her thumb into the gathered skin between Eve’s brows, smoothing out her frown. ‘Stay,’ she murmured.

It got Eve to smile at least, to look at her but not to stay. The world wasn’t going to wait for Eve to be ready to get out of bed.

‘I really do have to go,’ Eve insisted, getting up to gather her clothes. That was when she remembered she’d worn her pyjama’s here. She stood blankly for a moment, her hands full of fleecy fabric.

Erin swung herself off the side of her bed and opened her built-in for Eve. Erin’s style incorporated more graphic tees and jeans, but their colour palettes were similar the same neutral tones. Eve settled for the maroon – a Dungeons & Dragons t-shirt – and a pair of jeans that threatened to fall down her narrow hips.

Erin handed her a belt without her asking. ‘If you were having regrets, you’d tell me, right?’

Eve looked up from doing her buckle to see Erin’s puppy dog eyes. Not sure what to say, Eve mimicked Erin’s gesture, and pressed her thumb between Erin’s brows before kissing her. ‘You’re an idiot. I’ll come by later.’

Eve caught a glimpse of Erin’s grin as she got her phone and headed out the door.

‘I’m holding your pyjamas for ransom!’ Erin called after her.

****

All eyes were on Eve as she sprinted into the office in Erin’s clothes. She finally felt the weight of their stares as she put down her bag. ‘What?’

After exchanging a look with Carolyn, Kenny took the lead. ‘I don’t know how you knew but we got a print. A partial print. We found it on a work light in his garage. The print didn’t belong to anyone who frequented the house. I ran it through Interpol, and we got a match.’

‘Really?’ Eve couldn’t hide her disbelief, she looked to Carolyn for confirmation.

Carolyn nodded. Kenny turned his screen into her view.

A young face stared back at her. Eve did a double-take. Freckles spread from his nose onto both cheeks. His face was narrow, his facial hair was thin and blonde. His hair was a shade or two darker, a dirty blond mop on his head. He looked like a kid.

‘This is our guy, Felix Zweig. Twenty-four. German citizen. He offered up his print to clear his name in a case where he was the major suspect. Still is. But they never managed to tie him to anything. He dropped off the grid about a year ago. That’s presumably when The Twelve recruited him.’

‘Who did he kill?’ Eve asked. Her eyes locked on to Felix’s as if it was him she was interrogating.

Kenny answered, ‘Your profile of him was right. He had an obsession with one of his art teachers. She had him removed from her class. It got so bad she moved school. He was always drawing her and dead bodies. One day she turned up dead. Not much to put together there, but they could never prove it. There was no DNA. Nothing that linked to him that wasn’t circumstantial.’

Carolyn shot her a look. ‘All that aside, this is good. And perfect timing, Clive has gone from asking to insisting he comes in. We’ll have something to show that isn’t us twiddling our thumbs.’

****

Not long after, Clive sauntered in. His posture stooping with the weight of the stack of papers he carried. Before any greeting, he dumped them on the nearest desk. He took a moment to breathe, taking in the room then said, ‘Cosy.’

‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Eve said, joining him at the desk. Kenny followed.

‘Carolyn told me the good news.’ He looked at the photo of Felix mounted to the whiteboard. His brow furrowed. ‘Now, we can use this knowledge to our advantage.’

‘We need to put his face everywhere, make him panic.' Eve was forceful.

Clive shook his head. ‘We don’t want this on the news. We can’t give this guy a chance to change tactics, or for The Twelve to replace him. We need to focus on prevention and protection.’ It was then he acknowledged the novel before them. ‘These are the names of all the individual we think The Twelve might be targeting right now.’

‘Any chance you’ve got an abridged version?’ Kenny asked. He lifted a page to reveal the list layout, densely packed with names and bullet points of information.

Clive gave him a sympathetic look. ‘Afraid not. MI6 wants to avoid the further embarrassment of another influential person dying on our watch. He’s set to strike again any day now, considering his pattern. We need to know who to protect.’

Eve let out a laugh. That would be impossible. ‘I’ve been studying their kills for years. I’d need to know their grand plan to single out who could be next. The Twelve aren’t predictable. They kill feminists and fascists alike.’

Clive gave a shrug. He knew it was an impossible task, perhaps that’s why he was handing off the buck. ‘Do your best. If you can’t identify anyone, it’ll just have to be the old-fashioned way, the most important first.’ With that he pushed himself up from the desk, leaving the encyclopedia of potential victims behind.

‘You play D&D?’ Kenny asked Eve excitedly, now Clive was gone.

Eve was puzzled. ‘D and what now?’

‘Your shirt, Erin and I play in the home game, actually…’ His words ground to a halt as he put it together. ‘Eve,’ he chastised.

‘Shut up,’ Eve whispered, jabbing a finger at Carolyn and Clive who were well within earshot, in their own conversation. The reluctance on Carolyn’s face was glorious, she didn’t even pretend to be interested.

‘Did you hear about Babkin?’ Clive's remark was casual but Carolyn’s face soured.

‘Deborah mentioned it.’

‘Ah, Deborah. How is she doing? Taking it easy, I hope.’

‘She’s absolutely hating it. Bored out of her mind.’ Carolyn’s eyes narrowed perceptibly.

Eve bumped Kenny and whispered, ‘Your mum really doesn’t like him.’

Kenny shrugged. ‘Who does she like?’

‘Who are they talking about?’

‘I recognise one name, Deborah. She ran the Russia desk before mum. She was her mentor. Sore subject, actually, I only know what I managed to dig up myself. Deborah made a lot of enemies while she was at M16. Not a team player. Carolyn tried to stick by her but when they wanted her gone,’ Kenny shrugged.

‘They killed her?’ Eve’s voice raised involuntarily.

‘Worse, they retired her, gave mum her job.’

Eve scoffed watching Clive end their icy exchange and finally leave. Eve’s eyes returned to the hunk of paper before them. ‘He’ll strike in London.’

‘Who says he’s still in the country?’ Hugo remarked, reluctant to join Eve and Kenny in pouring over the pages.

‘If he’s still interested in me, he will. It’s not my problem if it’s not in London,’ Eve said simply.

‘Narrows it down, a bit,’ Kenny encouraged fanning his finger down the pages.

‘I need a smoke,’ Hugo muttered dismissing himself.

Eve didn’t blame him – after looking it over she felt defeated too. ‘This list is useless. I don’t care about their postcode. What do they do? Why are MI6 invested in keeping them alive? Why might the Twelve want them dead?’

Kenny gave her a look, the kind of mischievous glance that reminded her of Elena. ‘Who says we have to use what he gave us?’

‘You can make a better one?’

‘I’m a computer genius, Eve.’

It took Kenny a little while to rebuild the list on his own computer so they could start narrowing it down. Stripping it of anyone who wasn’t in or near London culled the list extensively.

Eve glanced up at the profile of Felix they’d outlined on the board. It had faded, the marker had scored through in places. It helped her streamline her thoughts to see Felix’s tendencies laid out. ‘Okay so… prioritize people with links to the other kills. Eliminate anyone who hasn’t been in London for at least a week. He needs to stalk them.’

‘Working on it,’ he said, his fingers clacking at the keys.

‘What are we at now?’ Carolyn affixed her glasses to her nose and peered over Kenny’s shoulder.

‘A hundred and fifteen names,’ Kenny said.

‘Better,’ Carolyn agreed.

Eve stood before the board, looking over the profile again. ‘Still. There has to be a better way.’

‘Unless you want to personally check every postcard sent through the British mail this is how it has to be done,’ Carolyn remarked.

Eve brightened. ‘Can we do that?’

Carolyn’s look said it all. Of course, they couldn’t.

Eve gave her attention back to Kenny, crowding over his shoulder as he worked. ‘Okay, those names will have to do. Compile what you can about them. Suspicious activity. Allegiances. I want to know their dirt. I want to know why someone might want to kill them.’

Hugo came waddling back in, a large rectangular box in his arms, he had to turn sideways to get it through the door.

‘What’s that?’ Carolyn asked not moving to help Hugo with the door.

He sat it on the closest desk. ‘A courier dropped it off for Eve.’

Eve approached it. This wasn’t Villanelle. She just knew it was instinct. She took a breath and cut through the tape with the ballpoint of her pen. The cardboard lips fell away to reveal plumes of red fabric. Cushioned in the fabric was an axe handle. The wood was splintered where the tip had been pried off. Eve recognised it immediately, the long scythe-like curve to the wood. The red tip. There were specks of blood, dried into the grooves of the wood.

Eve swallowed hard. She could feel the other eyes on her.

‘What is it?’ Hugo asked she could feel him approaching.

This was Felix’s trump card. He was going to show everybody who she really was. He’d started the clock.

Panic filled her and she reached for it. The weight of it was lopsided without the axe head. Almost frantically she ran her hands along it, finding the position where she’d gripped it to swing at Raymond. That was her only plan to muddy the presence of her previous fingerprints with these ones. To inject some deniability.

‘An axe handle?’ Kenny askedin confusion.

Carolyn’s face shifted. In two strides she crossed the room and smacked it from Eve’s hands. It dropped back into the fabric and Eve took a step back, the trance broken.

She looked up to meet Carolyn’s alarmed eyes, ‘Is it _the_ axe?’

****

Eve sat in Carolyn’s office picking her nails. There was a thin line of dirt between her along her nailbed. She didn’t look at Carolyn.

‘Do you know how many risks I have taken? How much criticism I have incurred bringing you back onto this team, Eve?’ Carolyn tapped the wing of her glasses against her desk. She’d just got off the phone with MI6 about testing the axe and its connections with Raymond’s death. ‘Do we have something to worry about?’

Eve knew what she was asking. She tried to loosen her shoulders and said, ‘No.’

‘When that axe comes back, we’ll find Villanelle’s prints?’ Carolyn pushed.

Eve didn’t trust her voice and just nodded.

Carolyn sighed, rubbing her forehead then around a yawn said, ‘Take the rest of the day off.’

‘But -.’

Carolyn cut her off. ‘It wasn’t a suggestion.’

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW**

The key card Stephanie gave her worked without a hitch. Adam O’Brien lived in a penthouse. He was probably very rich, but his taste was tacky. Everything was gold-trimmed and leather.

Villanelle stood in his living room, her gun with a silencer equipped, weighed down the inner pocket of her jacket. It was a large empty space – just a few couches and a coffee table. The lights were off, and the blinds were down. The room was illuminated by the glow of a large fish tank. The water cast rippling light across the floor. Villanelle walked up to it, watching the brightly coloured fish drift through the coral scene. She hadn’t drowned anyone in a while, that could be fun. She stepped closer looking for a possible opening in the tank.

‘Who are you?’ The voice was annoyed rather than alarmed. ‘I told you the front desk you’re only to clean when I’m out of the house.’

Blankly, she turned to look at him. He stood in a towel, his hair still wet and slicked to his head. His bare feet left watermarks behind them as he got up in her face. ‘Don’t you speak English, you Russian-.’

He didn’t get to finish, his words dissolved into a scream of pain. She’d shot him in the knee cap. Ungracefully, he took a knee before her.

‘Are you alone?’ She asked.

He gave a weak, ‘No.’

She didn’t believe him but searched anyway. There was nothing of note in his room aside from an atrocious leopard print bedspread. The bathroom was empty. There was only one other door left. It was a small room lined with glass enclosures.

These weren’t fish tanks, the environments inside were dirt-terrain littered with branches and lit by a heat lamp. She paused at one of the glass tanks and looked in, camouflaged against the bark was a brown snake. In fact, all of them held snakes, they lazily acknowledged her presence. One snake she passed, however, sat up trying to match her height as its tongue tasted the air for her. Its body was ash grey and its belly bone white.

Villanelle bared her teeth at it. She thought of Medusa, the twisting fury of her hair as she looked into the snake’s black eyes.

Its coffin-shaped head hinged as its jaw revealed a black mouth and small fangs.

She smiled at it. ‘Hello, friend.’

**EVE – KONSTANTIN’S SAFE HOUSE**

Felix’s goal in sending that axe was clear to Eve, to ramp up the pressure. He’d started the clock on how long Eve had to catch him before she was suspended. How long she had to save herself from whatever fate he planned for her. It spurred Eve into action, into self-preservation. She couldn’t tell how all this was going to come to a head, but she wanted to know as much as she could before it did.

She stood at the door of Konstantin’s safe house as the M16 agent reviewed her identification. She was shocked but relieved when he waved her through.

Inside, Konstantin was walking around the kitchen in a bathrobe, ranting in Russian to his wife, a glass full of amber liquid in his hand. Great, Eve’s favourite kind of Konstantin, drunk Konstantin.

‘It’s that lady Villanelle was obsessed with,’ Irina said her head of curls peeking over the back of the couch.

Konstantin broke off midsentence. Eve smiled at him, swinging her bag in front of her body. He swore in Russian then motioned for her to follow him into an office. He closed the door behind them.

‘Enjoying this?’ Eve gestured to the safe house.

His beard was scraggly. His eyes were bloodshot, but his grin was still wide when he said, ‘Oh yes. It’s a fun game Carolyn and I play. Will the Twelve kill me before or after she extracts the information, she wants from me? That’s if my wife doesn’t murder me first, turns out they aren’t too happy to find out you survived when you’re the one who made them think you were dead.’ By the end, his smile had died, his eyes were flat. ‘Carolyn rope you in to help, Eve?’

‘Carolyn doesn’t know I’m here.’

His eyes widened then he chuckled. ‘Oh Naughty.’

Eve pulled a photo of Felix from her bag and held it out before Konstantin. ‘Have you ever come across this assassin before?’

He glanced at it briefly, not taking the photo from her. ‘Do you think we all catch up at The Twelve’s Christmas party?’

She ignored his tone. ‘I have reason to believe, he’s specifically interested in Villanelle. He’s trying to get her attention. I think she’s in danger.’

His eyes cut back to the photo before he laughed, it felt hollow, rocking back on his heels, he said, ‘For once in that kid’s life, she might actually be safe. Especially if you can’t find her.’

‘So, you know where she is?’ Eve leapt.

He chuckled and wiggled a finger at her. ‘I didn’t say that.’

‘I know she’s in Moscow.’ She watched his face. His jaw clenched.

Konstantin and Eve had few things in common, but she was sure when it came to Villanelle, they could see eye to eye. She knew how much he cared about her. How he defied the Twelve to save her. It was a fondness Villanelle shared in; she would trust Konstantin with her location.

Eve let her face soften and said, ‘I just … I want to make sure she’s safe.’

He sighed and chewed on his cheek. ‘You are more on edge than usual. Have a drink.’ Eve shook her head. He downed his and, on his way to fill his glass said, ‘Your loss.’

‘Can you get me a gun?’ Eve asked.

‘Ha!’ There was the rattle of glass as he doled out another portion of liquor. He turned around to see that Eve was serious, his laughter dried up. ‘It’s that bad, huh?’

Her face seemed to say it all and he walked to his desk and reach around in one of the draws. When he pulled his hand out, he held a handgun.

‘Jesus,’ Eve said, struck by the casual way he retrieved the weapon.

He held it out to her. His hand swaying a little from the alcohol. ‘Take it. I don’t need the temptation.’

Part of Eve wanted to ask but she was sure she didn’t want to know the answer. Nervously, she took hold of it, surprised by the weight of it, her hand dropped a little, her fingers clutching at the trigger.

‘Woah. Woah,’ Konstantin jumped as the gun swung in his direction. ‘It’s loaded.’ He caught Eve’s wrist and stepped out of the line of fire.

Eve watched how quickly he switched into an instructor. Then she wondered how many people he’d taught to kill. Konstantin bought her back by jabbing his finger at the safety.

‘Most important. Never forget this little thing here,’ he flicked it back and forth for effect as he said, ‘Can’t kill. Can kill. Can’t kill. Got it?’

Eve flicked it back and forth a few times before he relinquished her wrist. Even then he gave a huff, not sold on Eve’s abilities. Eve had to agree, she retired the handgun to her floppy handbag. She shuffled it around, so the shape of the gun wasn’t imprinting into the cheap leather.

‘Turns out life sucks no matter which side you play for, Eve,’ Konstantin said, he had slumped back into the couch, his head tipping to the ceiling, hiding his eyes. His voice broke. ‘She can’t even look at me.’

Eve made the leap and assumed he meant his wife. ‘Your family will forgive you.’

‘Maybe so. But I have to face what I am too.’ He pursed his lips trying to fight back the shin in his eyes. Finally, he looked back at Eve. ‘Do you really think she’s in danger?’

‘Yes.’ Eve didn’t hesitate.

He sat up again. ‘Hmm. I can only give you the same information I gave her. I really don’t know where she is.’

Eve tried to control her excitement, her desperation. ‘What information did you give her?’

‘Her sister’s name.’

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW**

Eager to get this over with, Villanelle travelled from Adam’s to Stephanie’s apartment. Which was a street over from her father’s house, the house Stephanie grew up in. Her little slice of freedom was probably paid for by her father.

Stephanie answered the door in a peacock inspired robe. Villanelle had been eying one similar. Music played, and she spun away in a flourish.

Awkwardly, Villanelle entered the living space. It was messy. Discarded clothing bags and expensive clothes were strewn about. She’d only seen Stephanie a few hours before, but she was different, floating almost.

‘Did you have a party?’ Villanelle asked.

‘I’m celebrating.’

‘What?’

She smiled. ‘My ascension.’

‘You wanted him dead that badly?’ Villanelle mused as Stephanie retrieved a comically large stack of money. When she held it out to Villanelle, she said, ‘So kind of you to share your pocket money.’

Stephanie tucked it behind her back just as Villanelle reached for it. Then she stepped into Villanelle’s space.

Villanelle looked down at her, annoyed. They stood so close that the flowing ends of Stephanie robe pooled over Villanelle’s shoes.

‘Tell me how you did it,’ Stephanie breathed, her eyes wide darting between Villanelle’s. Then they flicked down to her lips and she reaffirmed it, ‘Tell me.’

Villanelle frowned at her, not sure what to do. She didn’t know what to make of Stephanie. If she was a brat or as fearsome as she presented herself. She certainly had her own agenda, wanted to be another player in this little game. After measuring her Villanelle finally said, rather matter-of-factly, ‘I used the key card to get in. Shot him in the kneecap-,’ Villanelle was cut off by Stephanie’s lips pressing against hers.

‘Slower,’ Stephanie muttered, the money still in her hand she pulled on the tie of her robe, it fell open.

****

It was interesting to see Stephanie unkempt and naked beside her. Their sexual encounter was vapid and temporary. An act of pleasure only for the flesh. Afterwards, they didn’t have much to say to each other. Villanelle lay there, the blankets pulled up under her armpits while Stephanie curled into her. Her finger linked the freckles on Villanelle’s exposed skin.

When they did talk it was about work.

‘Don’t you want to know why I wanted him dead?’ Stephanie asked she sounded impatient.

‘Not really,’ Villanelle replied.

This dissatisfied her. Stephanie answered her own question. ‘Because I need to assert myself in all means. I can’t have some ex just walking around, having bested me. This will all be mine soon.’ Her gesture encompassed only the room they lay in, but Villanelle knew she meant her father’s criminal empire.

Villanelle was a little curious about the state of Ivan’s affairs. He was dying from something, maybe something sinister, maybe just old age. ‘It’s one hell of an inheritance.’

‘I want it.’ Her tone was assured. Villanelle thought she sounded so young. ‘I’ve watched him rule my whole life. He’s stagnant. He can’t handle the threat the Volkov pose.’

‘And you can?’ Villanelle scoffed.

‘Who’s to say I’m not already? I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty.’ Her eyes narrowed in what Villanelle guess was meant to be a menacing look.

‘Have your father killed then. Take what you want.’ Villanelle challenged. She didn’t believe Stephanie’s display, didn’t believe she really understood what she was asking for.

‘Are you offering?’ She cocked an eyebrow at Villanelle.

‘If I stay out of a job, sure,’ Villanelle said flatly.

‘There are some lines you don’t cross,’ Stephanie admitted, letting the topic slide. She poked a freckle on Villanelle’s cheek and said, ‘He just needs time to cool off.’

Villanelle recalled the flying spittle and popping veins. ‘Hmm. I’m not so sure.’

‘Well, if he doesn’t,’ she traced the triangle of freckled by Villanelle’s left eye as she spoke. ‘You could come work for me. Stability must be rare for your kind. I can offer you that.’

Villanelle finally turned to face Stephanie. She searched her eyes making sure it wasn’t some declaration of love. Stephanie’s eyes were all business. They saw Villanelle as a power to harness. That was familiar to her, she felt comfortable in this conditional admiration, and revelled in being wanted.

**EVE – LONDON**

When she left Konstantin’s, Eve had a text from Kenny, he’d finished his revised and condensed list. He seemed keen to let it sit until tomorrow, but she knew she didn’t have that kind of time. On her way to Erin’s, she stopped by Elena’s. Kenny had been staying there.

He asked for her to come in, she made her excuses.

When she arrived back at Erin’s the sun was setting. Erin looked relieved when she opened the door to Eve. ‘You came,’ she let out.

‘You sound so surprised,’ Eve said as she walked in. Shrugging out of her coat, she realised she was still wearing Erin’s clothes.

The kitchen was lit with candles and a bag of takeout sat in the centre of Erin’s small circular dining table.

‘Our first kiss was pretty rough. The sex was great but unexpected. I thought you might bail,’ Erin admitted.

Eve liked Erin. She wasn’t going to pretend she’d sat down and thought it through, that she’d tried to define it. But for a while now her brief moments with Erin had been her only chances to breathe. They had an understanding. Eve felt like Erin saw her and she hadn’t shrunk away.

‘You got anything to drink?’ Eve asked.

‘Plenty.’

It was hard not compare Erin and Niko. This was all new, to be learning someone while being so intimate but she could tell they fit in a fundamental way she and Niko never had. She didn’t have to edit herself or divide up her life, as they ate the case files were out on the table. Her work was a part of the conversation not a distraction from their meal. After dinner with a glass of wine each, they flipped through Kenny’s list.

‘At least we know his next victim is going to be white,’ Erin muttered taking in the sea of Caucasian faces.

It was so natural. Eve refilled her wine and perched on Erin’s lap forgoing her own chair. Erin craned into her, pinching the fabric of Eve’s shirt. ‘It looks better on you.’

Eve rolled her eyes, a smile on her lips as she turned to the next page. A slight change from the rest, the photo that stared back at them was of a woman, a brown birthmark sat square on her right cheek. It looked like a stain, that could be wiped away. Her caramel hair nearly matched the mark. She was maybe 35. She wasn’t smiling in the photo.

Eve went to flick the page when Erin said, ‘It looks like a cat.’

Eve cocked her head and scoffed. ‘I don’t see it.’

Erin plucked Eve’s pen from her and added triangles to the two points of the mark and a rectangle nose in the middle of the blotch. Then suddenly a cute cartoony cat looked back at them.

‘Well, I see it now you drew half the thing on there.’ Eve confiscated the pen.

At the same time Eve was there with Erin but she was thinking about Villanelle, the revelation about her sister. Eve wanted to chase up the lead now, but she had to wait until she made it back to the office, until then Nina Belikova's name, scrawled in Konstantin’s handwriting, was hot in her back pocket.

Eve felt relief for Villanelle. She had always been such a lonely figure. Some pillar of family might do her good. Then Eve had to catch herself. As she often did when her thoughts strayed to Villanelle.

It wasn’t love, Eve had decided, convinced herself. Their connection took too much, consumed too much to be love. Even if she did label what she felt like something as pure as love, she could never allow herself to believe such a thing flowed both ways. Mutual obsession, mutual weakness, but not love. Villanelle wasn’t capable of anything of its approximate.

Eve would warn Villanelle because she had to, but she refused to love her.

‘Stay here,’ Erin murmured into Eve’s neck.

‘That’s -.’ Eve started.

‘A great idea?’ Erin finished for her.

‘Not necessary,’ Eve said with a frown.

Erin shifted a little to better see Eve’s face. ‘He knows where you live…’

Eve shrugged. ‘He knows where I work, too. He probably knows where you live. I’d be fooling myself if I thought I was truly safe anywhere. But I’m not dead yet. He must want something else for me.’

‘Is that meant to make me feel better?’

Eve turned another page. ‘Not really.’ She saw Erin’s face then Eve kissed her furrowed brow. She tried to make her words reassuring, ‘Carolyn organised a detail to watch my house. The best thing I can do is act normal.’

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW, APPARTMENTS**

As Villanelle came up the stairwell, she noticed that the air smelt different. It hummed as she walked to her apartment. Music was playing so loud that it distorted itself. Villanelle chalked it up to one of their horrible neighbours until she passed Nina’s door and the sound hit its peaked.

A slight haze of smoke drifted from inside. Oksana’s muffled cry was just audible. It sent Villanelle into high alert. Immediately, she thought of Dmitri. It seemed like his redemption was going well.

Villanelle didn’t do him the courtesy of knocking and burst through the door, forcing the weak lock to open. Smoke pooled around the dim lights of the kitchen, the music blared from a solo old speaker in the living room, but Oksana and Dmitri were nowhere to be seen.

In the centre of the room, Nina swayed, her hair in her face, the burning end of her cigarette raised to the sky. She didn’t notice Villanelle until she switched off the music and the melody evacuated her fantasy.

Nina blinked at Villanelle like she was a bright light. They stood locked in a stare-off, Villanelle’s chest heaving, Oksana screaming behind them until Nina hiccupped.

 _‘What the hell is going on?’_ Villanelle demanded, crossing the room, and grabbing a fistful of Nina’s shirt then forcing her to take a seat at the dining table.

Nina didn’t fight her, not until Villanelle confiscated her cigarette. _‘The smoke detectors don’t even work. They never have ‘cause I live in this shithole!’_

Villanelle lobbed it from the window and left it open to clear the air. _‘What are you doing?’_

Nina sniffed. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her breath smelt like alcohol. _‘She won’t stop crying.’_

 _‘Maybe because her home smells like shit!’_ Not sure what to do with herself with all her aggression now that it wasn’t Dmitri to blame, she grabbed Nina’s shirt again, shaking her.

 _‘I can’t console her,’_ she murmured and stared right through Villanelle. Tears built up in her eyes. Villanelle shook her, gently this time and nothing.

She let go of Nina and rushed to Oksana. She checked her over. Despite crying her eyes out, she was unharmed. Instinctively she hauled Oksana into her arms.

Nina clawed her way into the door frame and slumped there. Villanelle ignored her as she soothed Oksana. She could feel the tension in the little body as Oksana’s howled. Oksana expressed Villanelle’s own frustration when there was nowhere for it to go, she couldn’t cry, she couldn’t fight. She couldn’t scream with Oksana in her arms. Through stiff breaths, she held Oksana tighter.

 _‘Dmitri is dead.’_ Nina had to hold the doorframe to keep herself upright. She whispered it. Villanelle just looked at her not sure she heard right. _‘He’s dead.’_

_‘How?’_

Nina wasn’t really listening. When she spoke, she was airing her own thoughts out for Villanelle. _‘He said, he wasn’t doing that anymore. That he’d changed. Fucking asshole.’_ Then she looked at Villanelle, her eyes flat. ‘ _He died taking that shit.’_

Dread washed over Villanelle as Oksana cries picked up in their intensity. _‘No,’_ she insisted, as she remembered talking to Ivan at that memorial about how she would deal with the Volkov. How she would poison their product to ruin their customer's faith in them. In her mind’s eyes, she saw Stephanie listening, her face intrigued. Stephanie’s words, her behaviour made a little more sense in the light of pulling something like that off. Dmitri would be apart of a long list of dead from this.

 _‘He’s just gone,’_ Nina said, simply. And her face finally crumbled, the flat pools of her eyes now rippling with tears. At a loss, she fell to her knees.

Villanelle didn’t expect to feel this way. She didn’t expect to _feel_ anything when Dmitri died, maybe relief. Instead, she struggled to watch his loss harm them.

Stoically, Villanelle bore witness to their mourning until they exhausted themselves. Nina’s cries turned to whimpers as she slouched in the doorway. The wet spot on Villanelle’s shirt stopped growing, the tears drying up and the angry fists slowly relinquished their grip as Oksana’s eyes finally closed.

With one arm holding Oksana, Villanelle managed to coax Nina off the floor and into her bed. Immediately, she curled into the foetal position under the thick blanket. Afraid to wake Oksana by putting her down in her crib, Villanelle laid back onto the bed. She lay on the covers beside Nina, monitoring her breathing as she slipped deeper into sleep. With a hand on Oksana’s back, Villanelle felt the tension drain out of her with each breath.

And Villanelle felt.

It was less erratic than how Eve made her feel. If Eve was a rock concert this was ambient parlour music, maybe a lullaby. A quiet and pleasant brush of emotion. Villanelle rested in it like a warm embrace. It covered her and soon she too was asleep.

**EVE – LONDON, THE OFFICE**

The next morning as if Eve was making up for her lazy start the day before she was the first one at the office. Without Kenny’s help, she realised how clumsy she was at actual spy work. It took her time but she was getting the hang of it and began her search for Nina Belikova when Hugo and Kenny arrived.

Thankfully, they were occupied with their own task. Carolyn wanted them to look for any notable assassinations outside of Britain. She hoped examining the bigger picture of the Twelve’s agenda might help determine who was next. Eve wasn’t invited for obvious reasons. It probably wouldn’t have held Eve’s interest, anyway, now she knew where Villanelle was based. The kills they reviewed were too boring for Felix or Villanelle and frankly for Eve.

One kill, however, caused enough of a stir amongst the boys to pique Eve’s interest. She cast a look over her shoulder as Kenny read the case file. ‘Adam O’Brien. An American who made it big playing dirty in Russia. Affluent and showboaty but not a big fish. He was found naked in his penthouse with twenty-two snake bites from his own illegally obtained Black Mamba.’

Hugo whistled.

Eve shifted so she could see the crime scene photo. Adam’s pale body looked relatively unharmed. The bite marks were invisible, only the dried ribbons of blood alluded to their locations. The real blood loss came from his shredded knee. The dried blood that pooled beneath him disturbed the reflective surface of the black tile floor. A satin robe draped over the lower half of his body, it wasn’t for modesties sake, Eve was certain. It was too carefully placed.

It held a beauty; his skin was white like marble against the black floor. He looked like a statue, posed, and crafted.

Eve asked, ‘What was his name again?’

‘Adam. Adam O’Brien,’ Kenny repeated.

Eve couldn’t hide her intake of breath but forced herself to move back to her own desk, letting them carry on.

Villanelle was trying to be cute, to play the serpent and kill Adam. Only a bitten apple was missing to tie the last biblical knot. Not only was this Villanelle, but this kill was specifically for Eve.

‘How long would it take for him to die?’ Hugo asked.

‘With that many bites. He’d struggle to make it 30 minutes before the venom shut down his diaphragm.’

‘Seems a bit extra doesn’t it? Handling a venous snake just to kill someone.’

‘I can think of someone who would.’

Eve felt her shoulders pinching.

_Focus._

There were a few Nina Belikovas in Moscow. But few were a reasonable age to be Villanelle’s sister. She found one in particular with an adoption on record. She lived in Moscow with a dependant. Eve found the phone number from her address.

Her urgency was fuelled by Kenny and Hugo putting the pieces together, Villanelle’s name was just shy of reaching their lips. This kill was too far. If Felix was really looking for Villanelle, she’d just pinned her location. What was Villanelle thinking?

As she was scribbling the phone number down on a scrap of paper. Clive entered the office. He was drawn immediately to the image on Kenny’s screen.

Eve was shutting down her computer as he pointed to the photo and asked, ‘Another one of The Twelves’?’

Before anyone could answer Eve said, ‘A nobody.’

He gave a little nod taking in the scene again.

Eve left the room unlocking her phone as she went. Carolyn popped her head out of her office as Eve passed.

‘I need to talk to you,’ her voice was stern. More bad news Eve was sure.

‘I have to piss, I’ll be right back,’ Eve said kicking her stride into a jog as she pulled up her dial screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's coming, I swear. I might have got a bit carried away with the plot. I'll try and get the next chapter up before the S3 finale.
> 
> Thanks for reading. I have a Tumblr if anyone ones to come scream about Killing Eve: we-are-colleagues


	15. It's A Stain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot happens. I don't know how to sum it up without spoilers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finishing this off was a good way to stay busy while waiting for the finale.

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW, Nina’s Apartment**

It was late morning when Oksana finally stretched and began to whine on Villanelle’s chest, waking her and Nina up.

Nina only managed a groan; her eyes were clamped shut. Her head was pulsing with a momentous hangover. But still, she rolled over, arms open, expecting to receive Oksana.

Villanelle was already sitting up, ‘I’ve got her. You sleep.’

Nina offered a weak protest before cocooning herself in her blankets. ‘Thank you, Katya,’ she mumbled. 

The use of that alias startled Villanelle. It was an unwelcome reminder that Nina thought she was someone else. Yet, it felt like Nina saw her, Villanelle, so completely. And for the first time, she found herself considering telling Nina the truth of who she was. Villanelle hadn’t imagined she’d get to this point. When she arrived here, she had her guard up, expecting Nina to disappoint her. Instead, Villanelle found herself worried that Nina might reject her. The truth of who Villanelle really was is less attractive than the lie she had constructed for Nina. 

The television crackled and fuzzed as Villanelle switched it on. She was still lost in her thoughts as she placed Oksana down before it. Predictably, Oksana immediately stopped crying. 

She navigated Nina’s space with a familiarity she hadn’t experienced outside of her own residences. She performed Nina’s morning ritual for her, put on the kettle, put on some toast.

 _Stability._ The word came to Villanelle. It made her freeze in her tasks. This was stability. 

Villanelle had never been able to imagine it. Never been able to truly desire it before now. The small pleasures that can be taken in having a routine, in leading a life that keeps loved ones close and safe. 

Something had shifted for Villanelle with Nina and Oksana. They weren’t just family, of flesh and blood, they were of her heart. Her heart had always been a low capacity venue. Eve was the only one allowed to stay there, occasionally Konstantin, when he wasn’t being a dick. It was like a little warm home inside of her. And she thought, if they ever made it out of this, out of The Twelve’s grasp, that would be quite nice. To have the few people she loved safe and together. 

She went to the kitchen to collect a glass of water for Nina when the yellowed plastic phone mounted beside the fridge rang.

Villanelle stared at it. She had one similar in her apartment. She’d never heard either of them ring. She’d assumed they were disconnected. 

Reluctantly, she answered it to keep it from disturbing either of them. _‘Yes?’_

A voice Villanelle recognised, asked in broken Russian, _‘Is this Nina Belikova?’_

Villanelle went a little breathless at hearing her voice. ‘Eve?’

Eve’s clumsy Russian came to a halt. ‘Villanelle? What are you…?’ Eve trailed off, caught in the abundance of questions she had.

‘I’m babysitting,’ Villanelle said simply and proudly as she threw a look over her shoulder to check the kid was still in front of the television.

‘Babysitting?’ Eve echoed in choked disbelief.

‘This isn’t the best time for phone sex.’ Villanelle paused expecting a quip back from Eve, only shocked silence sounded down the line. Villanelle’s mind was working so fast, she was giddy at the sound of Eve’s voice. ‘How did you get this number? Konstantin,’ she reasoned. ‘He has mighty loose lips. Have you finally gotten bored, Eve?’ Villanelle laughed. It was a spiteful huff of breath, the sound of it broke through to Eve.

‘No,’ Eve managed to get in before Villanelle took off again.

‘Not your finest work, it took you a while to find me. Technically, you didn’t even find me, you got lucky. This isn’t my apartment. I live in 333.’ Villanelle smiled, bit her lip. Her daydream just might be coming true. ‘So, when are you coming?’

‘I’m not.’ Eve’s words were a roadblock.

‘Ok… I’ll meet you. We can go from there,’ Villanelle compromised.

‘No.’ Eve affirmed. ‘I’m not running, Villanelle. I’m trying to warn you. You need to keep a low profile.’

‘I have been.’

‘A lower one then.’ Eve tried to be gentle. She needed Villanelle to hear her, ‘An assassin for The Twelve is after you. His name is Felix Zweig. He’s already tearing London apart. He’s after both of us.’

‘And you’re going to stay there?’ Villanelle scoffed. ‘You don’t owe them anything. Who cares? Let him tear down London. He won’t find us.’ 

‘I care,’ Eve said, her words crystallised with long pondered resolve. ‘I owe it to them, not MI6 but everyone who has died. Everyone who will die if I do nothing. I have to see this through.’

Villanelle stretched out her jaw. It was tight from gritting her teeth. Her eyes prickled. Her words were thick with anger and worry when she said, ‘It will destroy you.’

Eve gave a weak, accepting laugh. ‘I think it already has.’

‘Don’t, Eve. This is our out,’ Villanelle dropped her defences. At that moment, Eve was the closest she had been in weeks, Villanelle wasn’t above pleading.

Eve took it in, but it didn’t change anything. ‘I’m sorry, Villanelle.’

The tears that clouded her vision spilled over. A wave of anger, of abandonment filled them instead. Villanelle hung up the phone.

**EVE – LONDON, The Office**

Well, that hadn’t gone great. 

Villanelle’s initial earnestness, her softness threw Eve off guard. Eve had expected more games when she finally reached her. Instead, it was a stripped-down plea to leave, to join her. They had reached another impasse. Similar to the one they reached in Rome. Villanelle was trying to make her escape from The Twelve while Eve was being drawn further in as she tried to defeat them. 

Eve sat there a moment; her finger hovered over the number again. Then she thought better of it and locked the screen. Villanelle wasn’t her responsibility. Eve told herself she had more than done her part, she’d warned Villanelle about Felix. Villanelle’s life was her own, to waste and ruin as she wished.

She got to her feet aware of what was waiting for her when she left the cubicle. 

Carolyn still stood holding her office door open waiting for Eve. She said nothing, only motioned Eve inside. 

‘Sit.’

Eve did, then reached for a lollipop. She needed something to do with her hands while she was being scolded. However, Carolyn pulled the jar out of Eve’s reach, forcing Eve to look at her.

Taking that as her cue to get on with it, Carolyn sat back, stifling a yawn, as she said, ‘Your involvement in this investigation is suspended.’ 

Eve had expected as much but her chest still puffed up. She was angry. ‘Carolyn… seriously?’

Carolyn affixed Eve with her stare. ‘They only found two sets of prints on the axe. Yours and Raymond’s. Villanelle never touched it. At best you lied to me, at worst you killed a man.’

Eve didn’t try to convince Carolyn otherwise and tried to appeal to their shared tenacity. ‘We are so close to figuring this out!’

‘Then it will be done without you.’ Eve caught a glimpse of frustration in Carolyn. This wasn’t her call. Carolyn had never cared about Eve’s morals. She cared about results. In a way, she had always known who Eve was, what she capable of. She didn’t need some prints to tell her that. Her face oddly open, she said, ‘You have tied my hands. I can’t protect you, Eve.’

Her eyes darted behind Eve as the door creaked open. It was Clive. Carolyn’s demeanour changed. Coolly and with finality, she said, ‘This is how it has to be.’

Clive had Eve’s bag in his hands. ‘We can’t allow you to go back into the office, I’m afraid.’ As if it was a peace offering, he held it out to her. The message was clear. You’re not welcome here.

****

As Eve left the office, she praised her instincts. The fact she’d left the drawings and files at Erin’s place meant they were safe. She’d lost the rest of her resources, but those drawings still felt like the key to Eve. 

Before she’d made it out of the building, she was texting Erin:

_Think I just got fired. Need a distraction, dinner tonight? Your place. I’ll cook._

Erin replied quickly: 

_At work. Don’t know when I’ll get out but get it started without me. Spare key in the pot plant. DO NOT LET THE CAT OUT._

_****_

Hours had passed when Erin walked in to find Eve sitting on her island table, the drawings and Kenny’s list of possible victims scattered across its surface. The shopping bags, presumably filled with their uncooked dinner balanced at one edge, untouched.

Erin couldn’t say she was surprised. Eve had admitted she was a horrible cook. ‘Why are you still looking at those? Didn’t you get fired?’

‘Suspended,’ Eve was quick to correct her. ‘He sent them to me for a reason.’

‘Yeah,’ Erin said, coming to stand between Eve’s legs, as they dangled off the counter’s edge. ‘And you used them to figure out who he is.’

Eve frowned and shook her head. She’d thought that was the case as well, but sending the axe, getting Eve fired. It seemed like a retaliation. A panicked move to level the playing field. ‘He thinks he’s too smart for me to catch him. He enjoyed being faceless. I didn’t see what he wanted me to. There must be something else. He wants to outsmart me, trap me, scare me.’ Eve picked up one of the drawings to make her point, pointing at the odd doodles around the portrait of the Porter. ‘Like what are these? Do they mean anything or are they just a mistake like the coffee stain?’

Erin cocked her head to the side and pointed to the cluster of blotches on David Porter’s drawing. ‘It’s his moles. All lopsided, I remember it, he probably should have gotten it checked out if he wasn’t, you know, dead. That was on his left shoulder.’

Eve stared at Erin.

‘What? Don’t look at me like that. It’s my job to notice the human body.’ Her hands came to rest on Eve’s hips, scooting their centres a little closer. ‘You have a mole on your back.’ Her finger identified the location, it was right near Eve’s scar. ‘A little edge of it is gone, warped by the scar.’

Eve couldn’t decide if that was sexy or not. Clearing her mind, she returned to the matter at hand. ‘Why is he so fascinated with people’s skin?’

Erin shrugged. ‘It’s the largest human organ. These,’ she touched the drawing, ‘are identifying marks. Useful for forensics. I’d assume they are also useful to an artist, trying to capture a likeness.’

As Erin spoke, Felix started to make sense to Eve, his motivation, his intent both murderous and artistic. ‘This is their final portrait. It must be perfect. He has to know all of them.’ Eve’s finger traced the detailed rendering of Adelina’s tattoo, she felt sick to her stomach. ‘It’s owning their image. Owning them.’

Eve felt herself get lost for a moment, eyes hazing over. Erin touched Eve’s arm, bring her back. ‘You look like a ghost.’

‘I don’t like being in his head,’ Eve admitted, her voice was weak.

Erin pressed a kiss to Eve’s brow. ‘Let me distract you?’ Her eyes twinkled. She kissed Eve’s neck as her finger traced a figure-eight onto the crotch of her pants. It was gentle enough, innocent enough but it sent Eve wild.

Welcoming the distraction, the release, Eve looped her legs around her. Erin took the drawing from Eve, flipping them over, so only the stain faced them, and the dead eyes couldn’t watch as she undid Eve’s pants. 

As soon as Erin fingers so much as brushed her, Eve sighed, her head falling into Erin’s neck. Eve planted messy kisses along Erin’s neck as she drew painfully slow circles. When Eve opened her eyes, she was looking directly at Erin’s birthmark, its craggy edges, like a dye spreading through the fabric, like a drop of ink spreading through paper. Right where it disappeared down the collar of her shirt. But Eve knew its true form now, the way it rode the scoop of Erin’s right breast. 

Erin pushed two fingers inside of her. Eve’s head rolled to the side, pushing into Erin’s shoulder as she sent a hand behind her to steady herself. Her hand slipped from under her, paper gliding on the benchtop. Eve cast a look behind her to find a steadier hold, instead, she found a coffee-coloured cat’s face. 

‘What?’ Erin was quick to pull her hand from Eve’s pants. ‘Do you want me to stop?’

‘I figured out what he wanted me to know!’ Eve cheered, kissing Erin square on the lips in triumph. ‘Ha!’

Erin backed up, letting Eve hop off the counter. ‘Okay,’ she drew out the word, not following.

‘I’ve seen this before,’ Eve said brandishing the stained parchment in front of her as she marched to the corner of the counter with the list of names. 

‘It’s a stain,’ Erin said but joined Eve.

‘It’s a sign.’

‘You’re cute but you’ve lost it now.’

With her free hand Eve scrambled through the files, she couldn’t remember the name, but the woman stood out. ‘There,’ Eve slapped the coffee stain down beside the photo.

It was the woman, Charlotte Lewis _,_ with the brown birthmark, still transformed into a cat by Erin’s hand. Eve turned the pages, so the two shapes were on the same axis and identical. 

Erin’s eyes widened. ‘Oh fuck.’

‘He wanted me to know how long he’d been planning this. That I could have saved her.’

‘What do we do now?’

Eve was already calling Carolyn. It rang out. This really wasn’t the kind of thing to put on a voicemail, but she left one. This was the problem with being an underground MI6 agent who has just been suspended, it was hard to summon the forces. 

Eve read Charlotte’s file for a phone number, she tried that too, it rang out quickly. One the line beneath her number was her address. She entered the address into her maps. ‘She doesn’t live far away,’ Eve observed. 

Erin was quick to say, ‘No. Let them handle it.’ It took one look for Eve to make Erin remember who she was talking to. Then Erin got to her feet following Eve to the coat rack, insisting, ‘I’m coming with you then.’

‘No, trust me-,’ Eve was cut off by Erin reaching down to do up the button of her pants.

‘I can see your knickers.’ It was so casual, and it shut Eve up. Erin pulled up her fly then said, ‘It’s not up for debate. Unless you’re gonna steal my car.’

****

While Erin drove, Eve tried Carolyn and Charlotte again. Nothing. It was a short drive. She lived in the city, not far from Erin, but in a richer area. 

As her number approached, Eve said, ‘Stay in the car. Keep calling them.’ 

Before Erin could protest, Eve stepped out of the still crawling car, leaving her phone on the seat but bringing her bag. Eve let herself in through the latched gate. As if sensing Eve’s inner apprehension, it squealed as it opened. 

Eve knocked on her door. The lights weren’t on the inside. After only waiting a moment for movement from inside, Eve tried the handle. It spun eagerly in her grip, it opened into darkness. Eve could see the outline of stairs ahead of her and what looked like a kitchen on the ground floor.

Anything could be watching her, staring back at her from that darkness. Around the lump in her throat, she called, ‘Hello?’

It rebounded back at her. She reached for the shape of Konstantin’s gun. It wobbled in her grip, but she held onto it tightly, like a lifeline. Her phone would have come in handy around about now as a torch, clumsily she did a lap of the downstairs. She found nothing. Not even a bedroom. Eve proceeded upstairs; each step creaked beneath her foot. 

She opened the door at the top of the stairs, it was a bedroom. In the centre of the bed was a mass, bundled in blankets. On the bedside table, Charlotte’s phone was aglow, vibrating on silent, Eve’s own number projected on the screen.

Cautiously, Eve grabbed the form's shoulder, turning her over. The woman moaned, then her eyes sprung open, to see Eve, a stranger, and the nozzle of a gun in her face. She screamed, gathering the blankets up as she scooted away from Eve until she fell off the side of the bed. 

‘Who the hell are you?’ Charlotte demanded. 

Choking on her words, Eve tucked the gun behind her back. She felt so stupid. ‘I-,’ Eve started as another scream erupted, this one travelled through the front door and up the stairs to her. 

Erin. 

Eve took the stairs two at a time to exit the house, her bag swinging wildly at her side. 

The car was pulled up in front of the house next door, the driver side door was wide open. Erin was laid out on the pavement a figure with messy blond hair hulked over her, straddling her. Erin let out another scream, this time calling for Eve. She couldn’t see Eve running to her, fumbling with the gun’s safety, aiming it at the centre of the figure’s mass. 

But Erin heard the shot, it reverberated through the empty street. A sound more violent than her scream. 

The kickback made Eve clamp her eyes shut, when she opened them again, the form was slouched to the side, letting out his own howl of pain.

Frantically, he rallied to get to his feet, blood weeping through the fingers of the hand he clamped to his shoulder. Eve thought about chancing another shot but he disappeared between the parked cars that lined the street. 

Eve ran to Erin’s side. A switchblade still protruded from her abdomen. There was a flicker of relief in her eyes when she saw Eve hovering over her as she writhed in pain. 

Eve moved Erin’s hands aside to inspect the wound. 

Frantically, Erin said, ‘Leave it in.’

‘I know. I know,’ Eve assured, pulling her coat from her body then removing her sweater, she packed it around the blade, so she could apply pressure without cutting herself. 

Blood flooded her hands and her sweater as the seconds passed. It was so eerily similar to Paris, where she had pressed down on Villanelle’s wound. The panic and regret overtaking her. 

This time she was calm, as Erin’s eyes started to show her fear, Eve promised, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

**Villanelle – MOSCOW, Nina’s apartment**

The next morning, Nina woke before Villanelle. The day prior Nina had been kept in bed all day by the burden of her hangover and her grief.

As Villanelle padded into the kitchen there was food cooking. Nina gave her a smile of good morning, but it was still weak and hallow. The sadness in her eyes draining it. 

When Villanelle took a seat, she placed a coffee down in front of her and said, _‘Thank you.’_ It was loaded with earnest, with gratitude, Villanelle didn’t know what to do with.

Villanelle couldn’t hold her eyes. _‘Don’t mention it.’_

_‘I think I might actually, a lot.’_

Villanelle raised an eyebrow as she took in Nina’s pyjama shirt. It had three English words printed on the front, Villanelle read it aloud, _‘Eat, sleep, reheat.’_

 _‘Is that what it says?’_ she looked down at the bold lettering of her shirt. 

Villanelle laughed. _‘Your English is really bad.’_

Nina was still frowning at her shirt. _‘I dropped the class as soon as I could. Might have been useful, every employer expects you to know English.’_

 _‘I could teach you,’_ Villanelle offered.

 _‘You would?’_ Nina smiled but she was sceptical of whether Villanelle meant it.

Villanelle’s mouth was full, but she nodded. _‘I might go out today,’_ Villanelle said changing the subject as she picked at her breakfast.

 _‘We’ll be alright,’_ Nina assured. _‘It’d be good for you to get out.’_

It was with tempered joy Villanelle announced, _‘I thought I might go shopping. Finally, settle in.’_

Eve’s denial still stung. Villanelle was determined not to let it get to her. She knew what she wanted. If Eve didn’t want to be a part of that, so be it.

_‘Your place does look like a frat house.’_

This place, this whole apartment was beneath Villanelle. She didn’t want to stay here long, she hoped once Nina had accepted who she was, Villanelle might be able to convince her to move. Maybe they would have a place together. Villanelle let herself imagine staying, having a home. Even without Eve, she might be able to find happiness.

Nina interrupted her daydream. _‘Borscht!’_

 _‘Borscht?’_ Villanelle echoed, wondering how they had gone from the state of her apartment to a beetroot soup.

Nina smiled. _‘It’s your favourite, right? I’ll make it for you.’_

_‘You don’t need to do anything.’_

_‘I want to. I can’t justify making it just for myself,’_ Nina assured her. _‘Just show up, okay?’_

 _‘Okay.’_ If she wanted to stay, Villanelle realised this was the kind of moments to lean into. 

**EVE – LONDON, Hospital**

It was 4 am when MI6 finally let Eve leave the interview room. Carolyn wasn’t present. Instead, she was interrogated by the brass of MI6, a group of peers she’d never had the pleasure of meeting.

Even in their interview, they flipflopped, one minute they were threatening to throw the book at her for carrying a firearm and the next offering gratitude and relief that her unethical methods had paid off. Charlotte Lewis was alive. It was hard to deny that.

As they dragged into the last hour, her side of things was more than documented, they didn’t seem to know what to do with her. She was already suspended.

Eventually, they let her go, returned her searched bag and phone. She didn’t go home, instead, she went straight to the hospital Erin had been taken to. Erin was still in surgery when Eve got there.

Eve took a seat in the rowdy waiting room. She didn’t want silence right now. As she wrung her hands together and she noticed Erin’s blood crusted under her nails. Her hands smelt like iron and war.

Eve couldn’t get over the precise placement of Felix’s blade, how it echoed the scar she had given Villanelle. He might be brash, but he was purposeful. To him, everything had an added meaning. Eve could only read it as a threat against Villanelle.

This time from her phone she was able to find the phone number for Villanelle’s apartment. A bloody fingernail hit call.

Eve held it to her ear, preciously, listening as it rang out.

It beeped, letting her know the voicemail had started. She went to speak but the tears overflowed. The words stopped.

‘Eve?’ It was Elena, Kenny beside her. All rugged up from being out in the cruel weather. She took Eve into her arms.

****

It felt like years had passed when they let them in to see Erin. It probably felt like so long because Eve had stubbornly been holding her pee for the last hour or so. She knew the minute she went to the toilet they would come with news. She preferred to suffer, to stick it out.

Erin was awake in her bed, if barely. She reached for Eve’s hand as soon as she laid eyes on her. Eve offered it.

‘How do you feel?’ She felt dumb asking but it was all Eve could think to say.

Erin gave a wonky smile and gestured to her IV port. ‘This is pretty good. I barely feel like I was attacked by a bloodthirsty psychopath.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Eve deflated as she said it, letting all the shame crush her.

It took Erin more than one pass with her thumb to iron out the frown in Eve’s brow. When she finally looked up Erin was smiling, ‘You did it, Eve. You really did it. You figured it out.’

Eve watched Erin’s limited energy being zapped even as they spoke. Her guilt wasn’t absolved but it wasn’t fair to make Erin talk her out of it when she could barely keep her eyes open. So, Eve nodded.

Erin lay back again her eyes fluttering, she joked. ‘We have matching scars now. That’s kind of cute.’

Her finger reached out to poke the exit wound right near Eve’s hip. Eve tensed. The urge to pee finally felt undeniable along with the need to breathe. She excused herself.

Even after she had peed Eve sat there for a moment. Enjoying the stillness. Her pants were around her ankles when she retrieved her phone, she had some missed calls from Niko. She unlocked her phone and it opened back up to her call log.

Villanelle’s number was right there again.

Eve pressed on it. Closing her eyes, she listened to the distance between them close as it rang and rang. It didn’t matter if Villanelle picked up, Eve just needed to feel the comfort of having even this wire-thin connection to her.

**VILLANELLE – MOSCOW, Apartment 333**

Villanelle had to balance the weight of the numerous bags to let herself back into her apartment. It greeted her with its usual stale emptiness. The bags she carried were mainly full of throws and little touches to address that. The bigger pieces, like a bedframe, a television unit, a table were to be delivered within the week. 

A piece of paper that had been slipped under the door, crumbled under her foot as she entered. She put the bags aside to retrieve it, in English it read:

_Come for dinner x – Nina_

And Villanelle felt content, accomplished even. She finally had a taste of what family was like and it settled the thrashing nothingness inside of her, peppered her existence with feelings and purpose.

Then her yellowed phone rang. The sound alone shattering all of that. She steeled herself, her face hardening but she picked up.

When she heard Eve’s voice, she wasn’t surprised. ‘He’s coming.’ Eve breathed, void of a greeting.

‘I’m not afraid of him,’ Villanelle scoffed.

‘Everything has gone to shit here,’ her voice was weak, exhausted.

As Eve drawled on Villanelle took in the note again, with a critical eye. The message was written in English. She’d never seen Nina’s handwriting, but she doubted Nina had picked up English while Villanelle had been shopping. A slither of unease worked its way down Villanelle’s spine. 

She did the quick math, a flight from London to Moscow was about four hours, he’d had more than enough time to get here.

This time it was Eve who pleaded. ‘You have to get out of there.’

‘I can’t do that,’ Villanelle said through gritted teeth, scrunching the page.

‘Why?’ Eve demanded.

Villanelle didn’t respond, the phone was left on the counter as she went to her stash of weapons. She looked down into the deep pit of the draw, just a knife and a handgun rattled at the bottom. She loaded the clip and stashed the knife in her coat. 

As she stood in the hallway about to knock, she smelt the Borscht, she slow-cooked beetroot, the way it stewed in the air along with a punch of horseradish. Happy memories and current worries collided as she knocked on the door, gun raised. 

Nina opened it, her eyes wide and tearful. They widened further when the barrel of Villanelle’s gun came inches from her face. A young man hid behind her, he was slim and tall.

This must be Felix, Villanelle thought. He was younger than she expected, younger than her. He had a firm hand on Nina's shoulder, from her skewered posture Villanelle knew where his gun pushed into Nina’s back. He crouched a little, but the puff of his blond head of hair betrayed him. 

Villanelle moved her weapon to point at his head. 

‘Careful,’ he said with a German accent, bobbing behind Nina. Then the nozzle of his gun moved to her temple in a warning. ‘Come in, you’re our guest. Guns have to be checked at the door, I’m afraid.’ He held out his hand from behind Nina, expectantly. 

Her lips twitching, but Villanelle lay the gun in his waiting hands. He snapped it up. ‘Thank you.’

He stepped Nina aside to let her enter. Nina’s eyes screamed out to Villanelle for an explanation. 

‘Hands on the table,’ he said, shifting the focus of his weapon to Villanelle. 

Glowering at him, she planted her hands. Quickly, he found the knife. After stashing her gun and knife in his belt, he pulled out the chair closest to her. The barrel of his gun nestled into the base of her skull. ‘Sit.’

With a wave of his gun, he motioned for Nina to sit too. He sat at the head of the table with Villanelle and Nina at his sides. Across from him at the square table, Oksana was wide-eyed. She watched the three of them with a growing curiosity, grasping at the air, for Nina, who could only cast her a glance, too scared to move, to provoke him. 

He sighed, then smiled triumphantly. Villanelle watched his left-hand rest on the table beside Nina, gun still in its grasp.

Then his smiled turned to Villanelle, big and shifting in size as he spoke, ‘I’m a big fan.’

‘Who are you?’ She asked, disaffected.

He rocked forward in his seat. ‘Come on, you had to know I was coming.’

Villanelle shook her head blankly. ‘Sorry?’

His face deflated a little. ‘The Picasso Killer?’ He prompted, ‘Felix Zweig.’

Villanelle pretended to think then shrugged. ‘I don’t watch the news.’

He got louder, his smile straining, ‘I have Eve Polastri chasing me. I’m the _new_ you.’

‘The clothes could use some work,’ Villanelle said taking in his all-black attire.

His lips twitched but he resolved to ignore her. ‘What is this?’ He gestured to Nina and Oksana. ‘Playing house, are you? You’ve gone soft. It’s hard to take any pleasure in finding you when you have fallen to this.’ In distaste he picked up a coaster doily in front of him and tossed it across the table, it landed on Oksana’s highchair. 

Villanelle couldn’t tell if he was doing it deliberately or not but as he spoke, he twirled the gun slowly, swaying it from side to side, at moments catching each of them in its sights. Nina flinched every time it rolled her direction and again when it flowed past Oksana, who had taken to chewing on the doily. 

‘I was on your tail when you returned to London. When you meet with Eve, buried that body, quite sloppily actually. Then you dropped off the face of the earth. I have to say my first guess wasn’t Mother Russia. I thought you had just gone quiet, were hiding out somewhere in London.’ He asked excitedly, ‘Don’t you want to know how I did it? How I found you?’

Villanelle humoured him. ‘How?’

‘Polastri, of course.’ There was a cruelty in his smile. He was already taking pleasure in what he was about to say. ‘The only reason she isn’t dead is because we, I, knew it was only a matter of time before she contacted you, especially if I made her think you were in danger. She is good at something. I cloned her phone. When she called your sister’s apartment, I didn’t think you would be living next door. But it only took a check-in with the locals, your employer, actually, to point me in the right direction. A young woman there was quite eager to give you up to get The Twelve off their back. Not bad, huh?’ He paused for her praise. She didn’t give it. His face soured and he closed the distance between them, as he leant forward, he winced. ‘Now, that Eve’s fulfilled her purpose, she’ll go back on the hit list. The game is over between you and Eve, Villanelle. And who could have guessed? That I would be the winner.’

‘You’re pathetic,’ Villanelle laughed, it was forceful, brash, and loud. Her hand shot out to grab the shoulder closest to her, and she squeezed. Under her thumb, she probed, a hole in his skin. ‘Was it Eve Polastri who shot you too? Who figured out who you are? Do you really think The Twelve will be happy with your work? It’s messy. You’re weak. You’re a child.’

His snarled, ripping her hand from him. Instead of pointing the gun at her, he let it settle over Oksana, he pulsed his finger against the trigger, Villanelle flinched, helping him make his point. ‘That is weakness,’ he said, his voice venomous. 

‘What do you want?’ The mockery was stripped from her face, as she watched Oksana play down the sight of his weapon.

A smile returned to his face when she yielded. He was almost casual again as he spoke, ‘You know, there are two offers on your head right now. One to kill you, with proof of your death, worth quite a lot of money. And another, for you to be brought in alive, for quite a bit more. Perhaps they want to kill you themselves.’

‘How much?’ Villanelle leant in, genuinely curious.

‘A lot. Lucky for you, I haven’t made up my mind about which I would find more satisfying, to kill you myself or to get paid more. Either way, I have bested the great Villanelle, I could kill you right now.’ To prove his point, he pressed the gun to her jawline, forcing her head up. A wild look came over his eyes, Villanelle saw the flicker, the power he felt that nearly made him pull the trigger. He lowered it. ‘But I could be … influenced. If you keep me entertained that is.’ The gun rolled pointedly back over to Nina and then Oksana. 

He meant to kill them. Villanelle kept her face cold, unfeeling but the anger she felt was feral. She wanted to wipe him from existence. 

Instead, she held out her hand to him, her voice forceful. ‘Okay. Give me the gun to me.’

He smiled. ‘Nice try. But we both know you don’t need a gun to kill them. In fact, you do your best work without one.’

Bored of the doily, Oksana let it drop to the floor, she whimpered, shifting unsettled in the highchair. Villanelle could see the confusion on her face as they stayed seated, as they ignored her.

Oksana’s whimpers blew up into full-on cries. She could sense the distress in her mother. Nina met Villanelle’s eyes, tears streaming, her hand a fist in the tablecloth.

‘Shut that fucking baby up!’ Felix exploded, bashing the table, then brandishing his gun at Villanelle he ordered, ‘Tell her to shut the fucking thing up!’

In Russian, she said to Nina, _‘Take the kid.’_

Nina gladly got to her feet, but took the chance to ask, _‘What is going on?’_

 _‘Just take her,’_ Villanelle said. 

Felix watched as Nina disappeared into Oksana’s room sceptically but when the cries diminished, he seemed satisfied.

‘What kind of employee of The Twelve can’t speak Russian?’ Villanelle prodded.

‘The Twelve isn’t just Russian, you idiot. You never paid much attention to that kind of stuff, did you?’ He examined the confusion on her face, revelling in it. He scoffed, ‘You think you are so untouchable. Don’t you, Oksana?’ He drew out her old name slowly, trying to get under her skin.

‘Oksana?’ Nina echoed. She stood at the division between the kitchen and living room. Her eyes were full of confusion as she put the pieces together. Felix’s eyes were firmly on Villanelle, while Oksana was quiet in the other room. ‘Oksana?’ She said, again but this time to Villanelle, addressing her.

Villanelle cut her a guilty glance, then turned back keeping her eyes on Felix.

Felix leant back in his chair, examining the exchange, the shift in demeanours. He lit up. ‘She doesn’t know? Oh, this is too good. Talk about entertainment!’ 

He waved the gun, making Nina sit. He grabbed her hands and lay them on the table, then fought Villanelle for hers. He bought their hands together in the middle, making them face each other across the table. 

‘Tell her,’ he said shuffled his chair closer. Villanelle glared at him, he jutted the gun at her again, ‘Tell her!’ He snarled. ‘Hmm, let’s see if love holds up.’

Her nostrils flared. Then she exhaled, meeting Nina’s eyes, letting their joined hands anchor her. _‘That’s my old name,’_ she finally said.

 _‘Katya?’_ Nina asked, still reeling.

 _‘Katya is a lie,’_ Villanelle admitted. She struggled to be delicate with this, laid out the facts instead _. ‘I was born Oksana Astankova.’_

 _‘You died,’_ was all Nina managed, as she squeezed Villanelle’s hands, checking she was real.

Felix leant in a little closer, his nose creeping into her view of Nina. He couldn’t understand what they were saying but with great fascination and glee, he watched their faces. 

Villanelle was eager to cut this short. _‘Look, it’s a really long story and I have a gun in my face. But I’m not dead. I’m not here by accident. I came to meet you.’_

Nina didn’t look at him but asked, _‘Who is he then?’_

 _‘I’m not totally sure but part of that long story. You don’t fake your death if you lead a simple life.’_ She squeezed Nina’s hands once more, making a silent promise she could get them out of this, the last reassurance before she let them go and sat back.

Felix sighed in frustration. ‘That was anti-climactic. I was hoping for some yelling, some tears. A bit more passion. Disappointing really.’ He blew a raspberry as he leant backcrossing his arms against his chest. Then announced, ‘I’m getting bored. And hungry. Let’s eat, then we can get on with this.’

Villanelle made sure she had Nina’s attention before she clued her in to his wishes, _‘He wants to eat.’_ Then not a beat later she added, _‘Weapon.’_ It was a gamble, she didn’t know how limited his Russian was, he couldn’t be void of it entirely. However, he didn’t react as Nina got to her feet, her eyes terrified but she nodded back, in understanding.

The window of opportunity was closing, if Villanelle had any form of weapon, or implement, she’d have a chance. He was ever conscious of where he put his gun in relation to her, but if she could him off guard with something else. She was confident she could beat him in a scrabble, especially with his injury.

There was a tense moment, of Nina, rattling around in the kitchen. Then after some laboured steps, Nina rose up behind him, the heavy cauldron of beetroot soup in her hands. Villanelle frowned at her not sure what she was doing. Her face alerted Felix. It was too late; Nina was already tipping the boiling borscht on to him as he faced her. Taking advantage of his shock Villanelle knocked, the gun from his hand, it clattered out of both their reach.

It hardly mattered, Felix screamed and flopped from his chair, trying to escape the reddy purple lava. He struggled to get to his feet under him as he slipped on to the matted carpet. 

Nina fell backwards, dropping the now-empty pot. It cracked the tiles at the lip of the kitchen. 

Villanelle reached for the empty candlestick holder at the centre of the table and followed him to the floor. The carpet was covered as well, he squirmed, slipping in the thick soup. He didn’t have the wherewithal to reach for either of Villanelle’s weapons in his belt. 

Not willing to give him a chance to get his bearings, she gripped the shaft of the stick and sent the heavy base into his head. Over and over.

Her knees were burning in the swampy carpet, her hands as well. Even the metal of the candlestick heated up in her hand. Villanelle felt none of it. She felt only the thud of her strikes against his limp body. The damage she was causing was somewhat camouflage by all the purple. The blood was indistinguishable from the beetroot.

Nina yelling felt so far away.

A hand gripped Villanelle’s wrist stopping her next strike. She shook them off when another arm grabbed her from behind, dragging her out of range.

 _‘Oksana, stop!_ ’ Nina shouted in Villanelle’s ear as she thrashed against her.

Villanelle needed to destroy him. Every whisper of him. She thought of him hurting Eve. She thought of him hurting Nina, of hurting Oksana.

Nina held Villanelle against her chest. One arm was over Villanelle’s shoulder while the other went around her waist. Her embrace forming a seatbelt to hold her back.

She whispered to Villanelle until she stopped shaking. 

Pain returned to Villanelle first. She dropped the candlestick, the skin on her fingers were going red raw as they began to blister. Taking that as a good sign, Nina let go and moved to crouch in front of Villanelle and make her meet her eyes. 

Villanelle stared past her at Felix, there was little to see just purple and a few hunks of beetroot cloaking his form. _‘I really wanted to eat that,’_ Villanelle said her voice meek. _‘Why did you do that?’_

Nina looked back at Felix as well. _‘You said get the soup and “weapon”, as in the soup is the weapon.’_

_‘I meant, get me a weapon.’_

Nina smiled but it was sad. She reached out to hold Villanelle’s face in her hands. _‘I thought I recognised your soul.’_

 _‘I’m sorry,’_ Villanelle said. Then Nina grabbed hold of her head, hugging her. Villanelle’s hand stayed in her lap, pulsating in pain but she lent into her.

Quickly, Nina pulled back and hit Villanelle. _‘Why didn’t you say something?’_

 _‘I was working up to it! It’s not an everyday conversation, "hey I’m your sister, who you thought was dead".’_ As if reminding Villanelle that they still weren’t safe, Oksana started crying again in the other room _. ‘I’m afraid we still don’t have time for this. We have to go.’_

She pulled herself to her feet and went to retrieve his weapon. The gun was sticky when she picked it up. The metal hot and stained. 

****

_‘Where are you going?’_ Nina asked, impatiently after a few minutes of blindly taking Villanelle’s direction as she drove.

 _‘To get us some money,’_ Villanelle said plainly, she was checking the gun over and trying to clean it a little. _‘Just pull up there,’_ Villanelle said.

Nina pulled over. They were in front of Ivan’s house. It looked gothic in the night-time. All sharp ridges and old stone decoration.

‘Wait here,’ Villanelle said, reaching for the handle.

Before she could open it, Nina locked the doors. 

Nina’s hands were strangling the steering wheel when she said, _‘I don’t even know what to call you. My whole life has just turned to shit and you’re asking me to leave the only city I have ever known. Just give me,’_ Her eyes flicked in the rear-view mirror to Oksana in her car seat, then she corrected herself, _‘us a reason to trust you.’_

Villanelle tried the door again, making sure it was locked. She sighed when she realised, she’d have to answer. Turning back to Nina she said, _‘Villanelle. That is the name I gave myself. Oksana is another lifetime.’_ Nina nodded, accepting this but still expectant. _‘You probably shouldn’t trust me. I’m the sole reason your life has gone up in flames. But if you go back there, they will kill you. They will kill you because you’ve seen them. Because they can. Because you are nobody.’_

Villanelle witnessed the impact of her harsh words, Nina physically curled away from her. That went about as well as she imagined it would. She stared out the front window, chewing her cheek. Then she took another breath, shifting her tone, _‘But you are not a nobody to me. I will protect both of you. And the best way of doing that is to get out of this country, as soon as possible. And the money I’m about to go get will help us do that quietly._ ’ Nina met Villanelle's eyes. _‘Better?’_

Her nod was stiff. _‘It’ll do, for now.’_

The doors unlocked.

Villanelle got out to stand before her next obstacle. The grand double doors of Ivan’s house. Two stonework bear heads snarled at her as she approached. To her surprise the doors were slightly ajar, she swung them open. 

She had expected the place to be crawling with goons. It opened to an empty hall, she walked the corridor peering into rooms, still she saw nobody. 

In one room a fire crackled. As Villanelle entered, she could spot the bald top of Ivan’s head in one of the lounge chairs along with a waft of cigar smoke. The carpet at his feet was a bearskin.

He wasn’t surprised when he saw her. ‘I told you they would come looking.’

She kept her gun on him, as she walked the boundary of the room, still on high alert. ‘No goons?’

He sat up a little more, then with a pointed look and said, ‘Enough blood has been spilled don’t you think?’

She let her gun drop to her side. ‘Disappointing. I really wanted to hit something.’

‘You’re not mad, are you? It was you or my own family. Forgive me for making the obvious choice. You knew the rules.’ His tone was confusing a mixture of aggression and rationale, he didn’t seem to know how to appeal to her. 

Villanelle knew what he was doing. He was covering for Stephanie. ‘I know it wasn’t you. Where is she?’

He shook his head. No. he wouldn’t do that. 

Villanelle settled in the seat across from him. ‘You don’t seem surprised that I’m alive.’

‘I didn’t want you dead,’ he said. She believed him. His weary eyes tried to pin her as he pleaded, ‘Let me live.’

She barked a laugh. 

He continued, undeterred, ‘Let me live and I’ll give you all the money you could ever want. You could ride out of here so rich you’d never need to kill again.’

Villanelle shook her head. ‘It’s not your life I want. From you, I want the money you owe me and her location.’

‘You can have your money,’ he rocked forward, opening a box on the table between them. It was all there, plus a little more. 

Villanelle shuffled forward, her curiosity overtaking her interest in the money, ‘Why do you protect her? She wanted to take over, you know. It was all her. She hired me to kill behind your back. She killed all those people’

‘She has a lot to learn about having power.’ He admitted. Beyond that, her words didn’t rattle him. He knew it all already and yet, he still sat here protecting her. ‘You’d be surprised what one would do for their family.’

Villanelle wasn’t surprised. She looked at her blistering skin. She didn’t have to guess anymore. Still, she pressed him, ‘You would die for her mistake?’

‘She’s my daughter.’

‘Answer the question.’

He took one last puff of his cigar before he answered, the smoke poured out his lips with his words, ‘Without hesitation.’

‘OK,’ Villanelle nodded. 

Before he could react before he understood the bargain he was making, she shot him between the eyes. He slumped forward, his cigar falling and singeing the bear fur. 

It wasn’t perfect, not as good as Stephanie’s blood, but it felt just. Stephanie’s actions would destroy her on their own without her father to protect her. It felt right to take her father after she had taken Oksana’s.

Villanelle collected the box, leaving as quickly as she came. 

When she got back in the car with Nina, she started the engine and asked, _‘Where are we even going?’_

_‘Anywhere you want, but we have to go to London first.’_

**EVE – LONDON, Hospital**

After the phone call, Eve returned to the room, Erin was asleep. She went back to waiting, her mind playing with what Villanelle had said on the phone and its abrupt end. It was hard to shake the worry, but the exhaustion helped.

The hours slipped by. Eve’s eyes were just closing when Elena touched her shoulder. It was nearing on 48 hours since Eve had last slept. Her thoughts were no longer linear. It worked to Elena’s advantage; it made some sense when she insisted, that she take Eve home.

‘She won’t be alone, Kenny will stay. Come on, I’ll take you home,’ Elena said.

Where was Eve’s home?

To Elena that turned out to be back to Niko. Eve hadn’t seen him in the last week. She’d stepped up the avoidance once she started sleeping with Erin. Niko just sensed things like that.

The sun was setting when she walked in the door and Niko was waiting for her, pacing the kitchen, he came to stand in front of the dining table when he saw her.

‘Hey,’ she said.

His hands were clenched in fists. Words that had been long pent up finally exploded from him, ‘I’m not some bandage you can put on your life to make it normal and boring again.’

He barely looked up to take in the state of Eve’s clothes. The blood that disturbed the grey of her windbreaker, that splattered over onto her shirt. Eve was taken aback. She knew she deserved it, but maybe months back, closer to the origin of this, not tonight at its climax.

‘We were getting along…’ Eve said, confused.

He stepped aside and the box from the wardrobe was open behind him. He’d laid out its contents. Eve was reminded of Anna’s shrine to Oksana. This one was to Villanelle. Latex and scratching of her handwriting. Eve counted the letters, there was one more than she expected.

‘You are the problem, Eve. You and all this shit.’ Niko’s eyes were full when she looked back at him, full of anger, full of tears. He made a face as he wrestled his wedding ring from his finger. He held it up, like a sacrifice, and said, ‘If I had stopped loving you, Gemma would still be alive! If I could have just hated, you… instead, I let you take everything from me.’

‘Niko, I -.’

‘Give it a rest, Eve. There is no one here for you to perform for. There is nothing you can say.’ He placed his ring on the head of pink dildo at the centre of Villanelle’s gifts and retreated up the stairs. ‘Sleep on the couch. I want a divorce.’

She looked at the pile of presents. The new message was a postcard, sent express. The image was of a severed head and a tangling of snakes, taking the place of her hair.

Medusa? Eve guessed. 

It was a perfect summary of Villanelle’s last two kills. Decapitating Albert. Envenomating Adam.

She turned it over. In Korean it read; _I miss you. Do you long for me?_

Eve had to smile. Had Villanelle learnt Korean?

She picked up Niko’s ring, rolled it in her palm. The edged worn thin from all the years of wear. She slid it on to her finger. It was bulbous. His hands were so big. They didn’t fit in hers anymore. She took off the ring. And put it in her pocket.

His big display and he’d still made up the couch for her. The blanket was tucked into the couch; the pillow plumped. It might have been the nicest doghouse Eve had ever slept in. That’s what made her know he was serious.

Eve fell asleep on top of it, not making it under the covers.

****

It was deep boundless sleep. The kind that healed. The kind that held.

When it let go of her, it did so suddenly.

Niko shouting her name caught up to her.

She woke up just in time to meet his eyes. He was at the top of the stairs, his figure hazy in the darkness. The whites of his wide eyes helping her place him.

‘Eve,’ he repeated his throat straining.

‘What-,’ Eve started then she watched as some force pushed him. His hands flung out in front of him to break his fall, but the momentum carried him over. His body dragged down the height of the steps. He finally stopped at the bottom, unconscious.


	16. You're Killing Me, Eve

**VILLANELLE – LONDON, Eve’s house**

Breaking into Eve’s front door was like greeting an old friend. It opened eagerly for her. Then she stood in the hallway. The house looked the same, even in the dark.

Villanelle found that both comforting and troubling. Comforting because in a way, Eve’s house especially felt like home, and whatever magic it held had was persevered even after her time away. And it was troubling because Niko’s boots were still by the doormat.

Eve’s phone was first on Villanelle’s list. She moved into the kitchen; Eve’s handbag was balanced on the edge of the table. As Villanelle went to it, she saw Eve curled up on the couch, as she had left her weeks prior.

Eve lay on top of the sheets spiralling into herself to stay warm. A single ringlet levitating over her lips with each exhale. Villanelle went to sweep the curl away and lay it back on her pillow when she heard something shifting upstairs.

 _Niko_ , she thought.

She really didn’t want to deal with him, her attention turned back to Eve’s bag, it took a little foraging but after she'd picked up four different lip balms and about twenty hair ties she had Eve’s phone in her grasp.

The thudding continued upstairs. She didn’t feel like coming face to face with Niko and ducked behind the island bench in case he was coming downstairs. With her back to it, she pulled a toolkit from her pocket. She ejected the sim card first, then for good measure, unscrewed the screen to wrestle the battery from the phone’s interior.

‘Fucking asshole,’ Villanelle mumbled into the ruins of Eve’s phone as if Felix would hear her.

As she snapped the sim card in half, she heard Niko’s voice, carrying down from the top of the stairs. Villanelle’s first instinct was that she’d been spotted. Villanelle took in her surroundings; she was completely hidden.

His voice came again, clearer this time.

She heard Eve stirring and call back, her tone equally confused, ‘What-?’

Villanelle heard Eve’s startled intake of breath before a sequence of thuds, signalled something heavy and limp falling down the stairs.

‘Niko!’ Eve called; her feet padded against the hardwood floor as she rushed to him.

Villanelle was getting to her feet when a woman spoke from the top of the steps bring Eve to a halt, ‘Don’t move.’

Eve staggered to a stop, her eyes were on Niko’s unconscious form, looking for a sign he was still breathing. He was face down, his legs trailing up the last few steps. Eve’s eyes only shifting to focus on the woman when she moved in front of Niko.

The woman was about forty, petite. She didn’t look particularly fearsome. She stood in the entrance to the lounge room forcing Eve to back away from Niko, her gun raised to make her point clearer.

Eve didn’t respond, her eyes were trained on the gun in the woman’s gloved hand. It was her gun. The one Konstantin gave her. The one confiscated from her when she was questioned by MI6. She shook her head and took a step back, not believing her eyes, not able to figure out what it meant.

‘That’s it. This doesn’t have to be difficult,’ the woman said, following Eve into the living room.

Villanelle took the chance to switch covers, moving from behind the island bench to the nook that linked up with the main hallway. Villanelle pulled the switchblade from her pocket and grab the woman from behind. She bought the knife’s edge to the woman’s clavicle. She stiffened.

Eve didn’t react to Villanelle materialising behind the woman. Her eyes looked through the two of them just the same. Villanelle tried to catch her eyes but was only found wild unfocused eyes. To Eve this felt like a nightmare. She wanted it to be one. Villanelle’s presence only drove Eve’s certainty that this was a fantasy.

Tapping the knife to the column of the woman’s throat, Villanelle instructed, ‘Give me the gun.’

As the woman lay the gun in Villanelle’s waiting hand, she shot Eve a worried glance. Noticing Villanelle’s focus wavering the woman drove her elbow into her side. Villanelle’s reaction was involuntary, winded she lost the loose grip she had on the gun. It hit the floor and glided under the couch. The woman spun Villanelle around, pushing her back against the kitchen table. As their hands fought for the knife it clattered to the floor.

Eve scuttled around the battle, her eyes torn between the lip of the couch and the knife between their feet. She was closer to the couch and got on her knees to retrieve the gun.

The woman saw Eve’s arm disappearing under the couch as she grappled with Villanelle. Villanelle could sense her panic, two on one were uncomfortable odds. She hit Villanelle one more time across the face, hoping the blow would stun her as turned her attention to Eve.

Turning her back on Villanelle was a big mistake. Blood spilled from a cut over Villanelle’s brow into her eyes, but even while blinded, her hands caught hold of the woman just shy of reaching Eve.

Beneath the couch was filthy, Eve’s hand gathered clumps of fluff but no gun. She turned around to see Villanelle with her arms braced around the woman’s neck, dragging her back to put the table between them and Eve.

Too quickly Eve’s brain shifted from flight to fight. She scrambled on her hands and knees to retrieve the knife from behind the leg of a kitchen table.

Villanelle dragged the woman back until her back hit the bookshelves. The woman’s legs flailed as her hands tried to pry Villanelle’s arms from her. It wasn’t enough, with all her strength Villanelle torqued the woman’s neck. Villanelle heard her neck breaking as her limbs stopped fighting. She pushed the woman onto the floor, her head clattered off the ground.

Villanelle let her head tilt back against the books as she took a breath and said, ‘That could have gone better.’

She looked up to smile at Eve only to find her was advancing, knife in hand. A sort of battle cry erupted from Eve as she leapt at Villanelle. The first swipe missed but she drove Villanelle's back into the fridge before she tried to strike again.

Villanelle managed to catch Eve’s wrist as her back crashed against the fridge. Magnets rattled and fell off behind her as the knifes tip severed the threads of her shirt biting into her flesh.

The length of steel easily parted Villanelle’s skin around it, her life and flesh bending to Eve’s will. She grabbed the knife with a second hand to stiffly the blades progression.

Villanelle fought the tip of the blade back out of her skin before she met Eve’s distant angry eyes. They looked right through her. They reached a stalemate against Eve’s fridge, their roles reversed.

It was Villanelle who pleaded this time, staring into glazy unreachable eyes, ‘Eve, it’s me.’

Villanelle’s voice was soft and rough. It wasn’t panicked. Through the fog and the haze, it reached Eve. Tear sprung to Eve’s eyes and as if for the first time she took in Villanelle before.

‘Oh god,’ Eve flinched back from herself, her voice full of disbelief.

She let Villanelle take the knife from her and put it on the counter behind them. Then she guided Eve by her wrists to take a chair. ‘Sit. Don’t touch anything.’

The weight of the last few days settled back over Eve. Immobile, she stared at Niko’s, unconscious form, feeling sick to her stomach. He’d never asked for this. In fact, he had asked her to let him go. Here he was suffering because of her again.

Villanelle searched the woman’s body; she found some car keys and a burner phone. She disconnected the battery and pocketed them both. She dragged the body into the centre of the carpet. In an eerily calm voice Villanelle recounted her side of things to Eve, she told her about Felix turning up in Moscow and her sprint back to London. Only one line of her speech truly reached Eve, ‘They won’t stop until they know you’re dead. So, we’re going to make everyone think I killed you.’

Villanelle straightened up, cocking her head to the side as she critically looked over the woman, ‘How tall are you?’

Eve thought Villanelle was asking her just to distract her and parroted back an answer.

‘Good,’ Villanelle said before getting Eve to help her shift the furniture of the rug. She kept her instructions basic for Eve, digestible. Lift this. Move that.

They found the gun under the couch, nearer to the window than where Eve had been looking for it. Villanelle shoved it in the back of her pants. Then, swiftly as if it were nothing Villanelle rolled up the carpet around the woman and hoisted her into her arms. It was an awkward load, but Villanelle bore it, shuffling to the door. The woman’s hair still spilt out one end, her sneakers out the other. It wouldn’t stand up the scrutiny of the patrol posted outside.

This realisation snapped Eve out of it a little, ‘Wait. MI6 is watching the house; you can’t take her out there.’

Villanelle frowned, putting the carpet down but only to open the door, and said, ‘There wasn’t anyone watching the house, Eve. How do you think I got in?’

‘Oh.’ Was all Eve said. She felt betrayed and foolish all at once. She’d blindly assumed this was all the Twelves doing, now she wasn’t so sure. She looked at her gun shoved down Villanelle’s waistband.

Carolyn had said it herself, _‘I can’t protect you, Eve.’_ The words took on a new meaning as Eve realised, she had meant from MI6, not just the Twelve.

Not sure what to say Villanelle ducked into the night, stepping over Niko to do so.

Eve was crouched beside him when Villanelle returned.

‘He’s still breathing,’ Eve announced.

‘He’s not coming with us,’ Villanelle said flatly.

‘We have to call him an ambulance, where’s my phone?’

Villanelle decided now wasn’t the time to tell her iPhone was in ruins and instead said, ‘You can’t. We need to get out of here. Why would we call in the cavalry when we are trying to escape from them?’

Eve quietened because Villanelle was right, not just about Niko but that they couldn’t trust the police or MI6.

Eve didn’t shift from beside Niko, sighing Villanelle crouched beside her, clicking her tongue. ‘It looks like his neck is broken, he’s probably already on his way out.’ Villanelle waited for a beat then peeled back his eyelids to show the whites of his eyes. ‘See,’ Villanelle said but Eve wasn’t beside her, she had started pacing.

It was all Eve’s fault. Everything. Erin. MI6. Felix finding Villanelle. And Niko… Eve looked back at his crumpled body. He really might die. The rest she could bare but she didn’t know if she could wear his death.

Eve pulled the gun from the belt of Villanelle’s pants. She stepped back out of Villanelle’s reach and shot the whole clip into the floorboards. When the gun was empty the board at her feet looked like swiss cheese.

The sound ripped through the house and ruptured into the street. Dogs barked. It pierced the veil of the night.

Villanelle sighed and yanked the gun from Eve’s grip. ‘So stubborn.’ There was something to her tone though, that suggested she shouldn’t have expected anything else. ‘Can we go now?’

Eve gave a weak nod, letting Villanelle pull her into the street. The night was brutally cold. Eve bundled herself in her jumper, her hands going in her pockets and she found a circle of metal. Niko’s ring. She clutched it in her fist as she got in the car.

The carpet was contorted in the backseat so it would fit. Villanelle was shifting the car into second gear and veering off Eve’s street when they could hear the sirens in the distance.

**EVE – SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE OF LONDON**

Eve’s whole body ached. She bobbed at the edge of consciousness in a state of ignorant bliss before she remembered, and the dull ache in her body progressed to anguish.

Her pain coalesced into a scream that wasn’t her own and far off a baby wailed.

 _Bill_.

Eve thought immediately of Bill’s baby sobbing in the pews at his funeral, unarmed and unencumbered by language trying to speak its sorrow.

The sound split open her scars, unwound time until she was bleeding and broke, her face against rock ruins.

A soft voice came to her and the child both. It cooed and sung in a language they both couldn’t understand but it placated them. It soothed the stress and strain on their bodies until the pain turned to silence then finally returned them to sleep.

****

When Eve woke again the events of the night prior were playing themselves back for her. She remembered getting into the car with Villanelle, how the adrenaline wore off and before they reached their destination, she had passed out in the passenger seat. Where was their destination?

Vaguely she remembered the car pulling up to a house and Villanelle’s arms were replaced by another’s, an angel that guided her into the warmth. The angel didn’t speak. She let Eve wash the blood and hurt from her flesh, and when Eve shivered, she gave Eve clothes and a bed. She couldn’t remember seeing Villanelle, and panic rose inside of Eve as she worried, she’d left her here.

The room she found herself in was dark, she couldn’t tell what time it was. She heard the pop of frying oil in another room. Niko had switched to coconut oil a while ago, nothing that fatty happened in their house, this wasn’t her home. There was no far off clucking from the chicken.

Eve got to her feet, and pain ripped through her side in protest. Her hand came down on the bedside table, she felt something metal and round get pinned beneath it. She reached into her shirt to feel the bruised skin of her ribs. It made her breaths shallow. Slowly she righted her posture, bringing the metal thing with her. As soon as she took hold of it, she recognised it, the shape of it, its worn edges. Niko’s wedding ring. The woman must have found it in Eve’s clothes and left it for her. Eve pocketed it, not sure what else to do with it.

The hall was brighter, trailing her hands along the cream walls Eve followed the sound to the kitchen. A woman stood with her back to Eve, bathed in light that poured in from a screen door. It was the angel. The Russian songbird. Brown hair spilled down her back and humming to herself as she tended to the stove.

Eve gawked at her so long the woman caught her and wordlessly she gestured to the stack of three plates laid out beside the countertop.

Eve understood that much. Eat. A furious hunger made itself known in her belly as she drank in the scent of greasy bacon and eggs. She was trying to recall the last time she’d eaten when she noticed the muddy tracks that cut across the room, running from the screen door to into a room to her right where they disappeared. Inside was dark, the door was slightly ajar.

Like a hunter that had caught a scent, Eve froze. She knew they belonged to Villanelle.

Nina watched the focus of Eve’s eyes shift to the door and she took Eve’s wrist to claim her attention. In a thick accent, she said, ‘Oksana is …’ She paused not sure of the English word, instead, she folded her hands together and mimed sleep.

 _Oksana_.

After casting another look back at the door, Eve filled her plate and took a seat at the small round table, that bathed in the late morning light. Nina filled up a plate as well.

When they were both seated Eve touched her heart and said, ‘Thank you. I’m Eve.’ The thank-you extended beyond the breakfast. Eve knew she must have been terrifying company last night or more accurately this morning.

She looked a little out of her comfort zone but still, she smiled. Not confident to say much else she replied, ‘Nina.’

Eve smiled back at her. She had guessed this was Villanelle’s sister. Their resemblance wasn’t obvious. The features that the two shared were held in such a different way. Eve had to admit Nina looked more like the old photos Anna had shown her of Oksana than Villanelle.

Despite her hunger Eve picked at her plate letting it occupy her eyes as Nina picked at hers. The silence, the unbridgeable gap of language loud between them.

Eve looked outside. It looked like Bletcham. Perhaps even more remote. Out the window, all she saw was a muddy road that turned into their driveway. The trees insulated them from seeing much else.

The door of the dark bedroom flung open and rebounded on its hinges after Villanelle. She was in the same clothes as the night before, a coat and sensible pants. She squinted into the morning light. Her boots were still on, the mud had dried solid, plugging the gaps in her tread.

She stretched in the doorframe until her eyes adjusted and she saw Eve sitting at the table beside Nina. The smile Villanelle gave rivalled the sunlight.

Eve recognised the calculation happening in Villanelle’s eyes as she took Eve in. That the last 48 hours had indeed happened. Villanelle looked a little more content with her life falling apart than Eve was.

Then Villanelle saw the food hanging out in the frying pan for her. She sat between the two of them her plate stacked at twice the height of theirs.

‘Morning,’ she said to them as she wiggled her chair closer.

Eve kicked Villanelle under the table to get her attention. ‘Does she speak English?’ Eve tried to be subtle, not pointing at Nina.

‘So so.’ Villanelle’s hand was a seesaw.

Nina was looking at her food, her expression unchanging she said, _‘She’s not your wife, is she?’_

Villanelle scoffed, _‘Who said she was my wife?’_

 _‘You did.’_ Nina was unamused.

She swallowed, the crispy edge of the bacon raking her throat. _‘It’s complicated.’_

Wide-eyed, Eve watched them bicker. Nina held herself in state of unshakeable disagreement that never progressed beyond a cocked eyebrow and a frown into her food. Villanelle was more emotive and as soon as her voice started to raise a baby started to howl, it came from the same room Villanelle had slept in.

Villanelle beat Nina to her feet, eager to stifle their conversation. _‘I’ll get her.’_

The sounds of a baby crying jarred Eve, she thought she was dreaming again. That perhaps she had never risen from her bed or the couch. Then Villanelle materialised, a real flesh and blood baby over her shoulder.

Eve’s mouth flung open. Causally, Villanelle sat down with the child on her knee, the screaming quietened. Eve looked to Nina, who didn’t react, just went to clear her plate.

‘Eve. This is Oksana,’ Villanelle introduce them, her face soft. Oksana was gripping her onto Villanelle’s index fingers while she bounced her.

Eve swallowed hard and asked not believing her eyes, ‘So, you want to be a mother now?’

Villanelle made a face; her knee stopped bouncing. When Oksana started to fuss immediately, she started it up again and answered a little confused, ‘Of course not. I want to be a cool aunt.’

‘I just -,’ Eve started gesturing between the two of them. ‘You and babies. It isn’t an obvious mix.’

Villanelle shrugged. ‘We have a lot in common. She likes to sleep and eat. Those are like my two favourite things.’

Behind them Nina had flicked on the TV, perhaps to give them some privacy. Villanelle lost Eve’s attention when the news came on.

‘Where did you go after you brought me here last night?’ Eve asked absently.

‘I couldn’t let that body go off in the backseat,’ Villanelle said, trying to eat with only one hand. She looked up from her plate and followed the focus of Eve’s eyes to the news. Reading Eve’s mind Villanelle said nonchalantly, ‘They aren’t going to say anything about last night. It doesn’t matter anyway; you can’t go back.’

Eve shouldn’t have been surprised but her heart still sunk. She thumbed the ring in her pocket. She needed to know Niko was alive.

Villanelle smug demeanour was grating Eve. ‘What is your plan then?’ Eve demanded.

‘Berlin.’

‘All three of you?’ Eve scoffed. Things were never that simple, if Eve had learnt anything from the last few months it’s that you don’t just get to leave.

Villanelle nodded, not understanding Eve’s tone, she reached out to touch Eve’s cheek. ‘Come with us. We could have a life together.’

Eve tried to imagine it, but she couldn’t. ‘I told you, I’m done running away. What about The Twelve?’

Villanelle’s hand fell from Eve's cheek, she didn’t have an answer that would satisfy her. Villanelle hoped Eve would have let that all go, finally see it was an unwinnable battle.

‘They need to be stopped,’ Eve insisted.

Villanelle leant back in her chair, her body language changing rapidly. She crossed her arms, letting Oksana balance herself. ‘And it’s our job to die trying to stop them? No thanks. I’m retired.’

‘So, you’re just going to run away?’

Villanelle laughed. ‘Yeah. I’m done with it. All of it. I’m ready for my life to start.’

Eve looked at Oksana in Villanelle’s lap. Eve did want that for her too. But she didn’t think this was the way to get it. ‘They won’t let you go. How long do you think you three will get in Berlin before they find you? A month? A week? Enough time to settle in before the next maniac tries to kill you. You might not get away next time. And you can’t be reckless with your family, Villanelle. Every moment you’re with them they aren’t safe.’ Tears threatened to fall as she spoke. She wished she could have heard her own warning, then perhaps Niko would be alright. He’d probably still hate her, but he’d be alive.

Villanelle had never had something or someone worthy of protecting before. She was conducting herself with the same recklessness as she had when she was alone and under the protection of the Twelve. Eve could see what would happen if Villanelle went with them. The Twelve were probably already tailing them. The best chance Oksana and Nina had, sadly was without Villanelle.

Eve knew that wasn’t an easy truth to hear and wasn’t surprised with Villanelle didn’t have an answer and stubbornly said, ‘I’ve found something to live for outside of all this. I’m not giving it up.’

Eve nodded but still said, ‘The Twelve will never let you keep it.’

Villanelle frowned. Eve meant if Villanelle wanted to be free, they had to stop the Twelve. She knew that wasn’t possible. She’d worked for them for years and she’d never heard a whisper of who they really were. They were omnipresent. Villanelle had begun to believe they were an idea more than they were a group of people. And even she couldn’t kill an idea.

‘Give up this crusade, Eve,’ Villanelle said attempting to end their discussion.

‘I can’t go back to my life and you can’t go back to yours,’ Eve responded.

Villanelle wasn’t listening, with a clenched jaw, she got to her feet and handed the baby back to Nina on her way out the door.

**VILLANELLE – SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE OF LONDON**

Nina was smoking outside when Villanelle finally returned, the old beat-up car sinking into the muddy earth of the driveway. Villanelle had left in a huff and not long after Eve had excused herself, retreating to her room. Nina knew Villanelle’s bad mood hadn’t expired because she made no mention of Nina smoking, walking past her to the door.

 _‘Oksana,’_ Nina called her back.

The mention of her old name made Villanelle stop if only to say, _‘I told you not to call me that.’_

 _‘Villanelle,’_ Nina corrected. _‘What did Eve say to you?’_

_‘She doesn’t think I should leave.’_

Nina nodded. Now Villanelle’s disappearance made a little more sense. _‘She’s not coming with us then,’_ she tried to clarify.

Villanelle’s hand went for the handle on-screen door as she said, _‘She’ll change her mind.’_

 _‘She might not,’_ Nina put her hand against the glass, keeping the door from opening and tried to get an angle of Villanelle’s face. _‘Could you leave her?’_

Nina was still trying to put together who Eve was to Villanelle. Villanelle’s flat unconvincing answer, told her a little more, _‘Yes.’_

 _‘You’re a horrible liar.’_ Nina frowned.

Villanelle snorted and in a harsh tone said, _‘If Eve wants to die pursuing this, then that’s her choice.’_

Nina didn’t seem convinced but changed the subject. _‘So, this is what your life is like?’_

 _‘It’s not always like this per se. Normally I’m doing more of the killing and less of the being killed.’_ Villanelle tried to keep her tone playful.

Nina had demanded to know everything on their flight to London. Villanelle managed to avoid her for the first hour but by the second hour, she had come clean. It hadn’t weakened their bond, but she could sense Nina’s hesitation. She hadn’t decided how she felt about Villanelle being an assassin, being a killer.

Villanelle knew that out of the two sides of herself, Villanelle and Oksana, Nina preferred Oksana. That worried her. Villanelle hadn’t been Oksana properly in a long time.

 _‘We really have led different lives, huh?’_ Nina mused putting her cigarette out on the porch. Then she asked, _‘What were they like?’_

_‘Who?’_

She didn’t look at Villanelle. _‘Mum and dad.’_

Her jaw clenched. She preferred not to think about them. For Nina, however, she unearthed an answer. _‘I don’t remember what they were like. I remember what they were. Dad was a drunk and mum was dead.’_

With that Nina let go of the door so Villanelle could go inside, after her, she said, _‘She’s in the bedroom. Take off your boots.’_

Villanelle did before she walked down the hall and opened the door. It creaked, announcing her presence. The light was on and Eve lay on the bed, a pillow over her face.

‘Go away,’ Eve said into her pillow.

Villanelle sighed, closing the door behind her. ‘Neither of us are going anywhere. We should talk about this. Break the cycle and all that.’

Eve’s face was still covered by her pillow, but she wiggled over, giving Villanelle room on the bed. She joined Eve.

They lay in a stunted silence until Eve announced, ‘Three months.’ Then she turned on her side, still hugging the pillow and looking at Villanelle. ‘It’s been about three months since I first laid eyes on you in that bathroom.’

‘Only that long?’ Villanelle sounded equally surprised.

‘We hardly know each other. And I ruined my life for you.’ Her voice was level and sure.

So that’s what Eve had been torturing herself about while Villanelle was gone.

Villanelle shook her head. ‘You know everything about me. You know me better than anyone.’

Eve searched Villanelle’s face. It felt like Eve knew it inside and out, each freckle, the shade of her eye colour. Yet, they had spent so little time like this, in each other’s presence. She touched Villanelle’s cheek because she finally could. ‘Do I? Until today I would have never imagined you wanted any of this. A family.’

Villanelle smiled into Eve’s hand. ‘To be fair, I didn’t know either.’

Eve kept going. Eve’s hands fluttered from Villanelle’s face to shake something invisible in front of her face. ‘You don’t even know if you’re being honest. How can I trust you?’

Villanelle let a silence hang between them with the smallest frown disturbing the surface of her forehead.

‘Ugh,’ Eve groaned. She felt silly, her hands came up to shield her face, and she rolled onto her back.

‘Then ask,’ Villanelle said softly. Eve peered out at her through the blinders of her fingers. A small smile played on Villanelle’s lips. Her voice was clearer, surer this time as she prompted, ‘What do you want to know?’

Eve froze as every question she had ever daydreamed about Villanelle answering logjammed on their way to her mouth. Villanelle keenly waited as she said nothing.

‘Maybe start small?’ Villanelle suggested.

‘What is your favourite colour?’ As soon as the question left her lips, Eve shrank back. What was this primary school? Were they passing notes and playing twenty questions?

Villanelle answered with a smile tugging at her lips, ‘Purple. What is yours?’

‘I don’t know. It’s not something I think about anymore.’

‘What was it the last time you did?’ Villanelle persisted.

‘Green. Forest green.’

Villanelle wanted to prod all the meaning, nuance, and abstract detail out of Eve’s response, but she played by the rules and motioned for Eve to take her turn. It was always a surprise to Eve when she catches a glimpse of her obsession reflected in Villanelle. It made her insides stir to think of Villanelle walking through her house with the same fascination Eve had walked through Villanelle’s apartment. That Villanelle wondered about Eve in the same way.

She knew Villanelle was capable of obsession, she remembered her fixation with Anna, but Eve wanted to believe this was different. Something more. The thought led Eve to her next question. ‘What was Anna to you?’

Villanelle pursed her lips. The mention of Anna’s name came out of the blue for her. ‘You didn’t figure it out?’

‘She never said.’ Eve had her guesses, but she wanted to hear it from Villanelle.

Villanelle nodded, looked up to the ceiling, there was a beat before she answered, it was like she got snagged, an old tie from the past tripping her up. ‘She was my lover.’ It was simple. Too simple.

‘You loved her?’ Eve couldn’t help but ask.

‘I did. I thought I would always love her. ‘

‘Even after everything?’ “Everything” being murdering her husband and going to prison.

‘Yes.’ Villanelle rolled on her side, facing Eve before she continued. ‘Until I met you. I saw you and her hold on me snapped. I was free and ensnared all in the same moment.’

'You know what she did was wrong, right? That you were too young.'

'I think I got her back.'

‘Do you think she loved you?’ Eve pressed.

‘Uh-uh. My turn.’ There was something to Villanelle’s reaction that gave Eve her answer.

Villanelle used to think it was love. Their need, their lust for each other felt powerful enough but it lacked dimension. It lacked emotion just like every relationship Villanelle had before Eve and Nina.

With Eve it was different, the space between their bodies as they lay on the bed didn’t bother Villanelle. She didn’t need to close it; Eve’s attention was enough. She hung on Eve’s every word hoping to understand her better.

Villanelle wanted to ask Eve if she loved her. But she lost her nerve not sure if she could handle the answer. ‘Do you love Niko?’ Villanelle asked instead.

‘Yes.’ Eve didn’t hesitate.

Villanelle’s face soured. ‘Despite everything?’ Eve nodded. ‘A lot of people would consider this cheating you know,’ Villanelle gestured between them, the line she drew linked their hearts.

Eve had moved past believing she and Niko were good for each other. She didn’t want him back, that was clear, but she still loved him. He’d taken the place of her family, been her life for so long.

Eve answered the question, vocalising for the first time her physical indiscretions. ‘I have cheated. Well, technically he’d already left me, but I have.’

Villanelle eyebrows shot up, she smirked. Whatever jealously she felt towards the person lucky enough to sleep with Eve was swallowed by the simple fact that Eve had done it at all. That she had crossed that line. For a moment it didn’t matter that it hadn’t been with her. ‘Why not before that? Weren’t you ever bored?’

‘Yes. But I wouldn’t have given him up for that.’

This confused Villanelle. ‘Okay…’

‘It’s called monogamy.’

‘It’s boring.’

‘It’s normal.’

‘It’s normal not to desire the person you are with but commit to them anyway?’ She scoffed. Her face twisting in disdain.

Eve spotted it, an old wound opening as another piece of the mystery of Villanelle unravelled before her. She saw Anna running around with Oksana but never leaving her husband. She saw herself through Villanelle’s eyes, loving Niko even as she lay here with her.

‘You have never wanted someone to be committed to you?’ Eve challenged.

They both heard it, Villanelle’s proclamation of love, of ownership, the memory of it rebounded off their bodies. They lay as still as two pillars in a standoff. 

_I love you. You’re mine._

‘I have.’ Villanelle looked at Eve, challenging her to bare her gaze. Eve examined her hands, where her wedding ring had been. Villanelle forced her tone to brighten. ‘My turn. Were you listening?’

‘Hmm?’ Eve snapped back. Villanelle waggle a suggestive eyebrow at her and tapped her ear. Eve caught on, and stammered, ‘Ah…’ She scrambled for an answer or a well-crafted denial. But her face said it all, gleefully Villanelle watching the blush bloom on Eve’s cheeks. 

‘I thought so,’ she said, more than pleased with herself. ‘Who did you sleep with? Have I met them?’

Eve cut her off, it was her turn. ‘How many people have you killed?’

Villanelle shrugged. ‘How would I know? How many do you think? You’re my biggest fan, after all.’

‘By my count thirty-six.’ Thirty-seven if Eve counted the woman from the night prior. And that was just how many people Eve and MI6 had been able to attribute to her. The true number was probably twice that. 

Still, Villanelle whistled and mouthed the number back to Eve. ‘That’s a lot of people. I think I’ve killed more people than I’ve slept with. That’s weird isn’t it?’

Eve had only killed one person, but she could tell which action was the more intimate, which took more from her. ‘Does Nina know?’ 

‘She knows about all of it.’ Villanelle nodded. ‘It’s weird though. I don’t think she thinks it’s my fault. Like a few more kisses and cuddles and I might have been alright.’ Villanelle scoffed at that. 

‘Do you wish she hated you instead?’

‘No. It just doesn’t feel like she completely sees me, you know? All that darkness is a part of me too. Even if _hypothetically_ we rid the world of the Twelve and I never killed again it will still be a part of me.’

Eve nodded. She understood the sentiment completely. She enjoyed Villanelle’s introspection; she finally saw herself in the mess of who the Twelve wanted her to be.

Villanelle continued, ‘She thinks our parents broke me. That she can just add it to their tab. Maybe she’s right, but who’s to know, that’s not who I am. I don’t like her love for me hanging on an if.’

‘Did they break you?’ Eve asked gently.

Villanelle shrugged, though it was clear the question annoyed her. Either she didn’t know, or she didn’t care about the answer. ‘Then who broke you, Eve?’

She knew Villanelle wasn’t being earnest with that question, Eve answered it anyway. ‘I used to think you did. Now, I’m not so sure. While you were gone, I wasn’t suddenly me again. I didn’t want Niko. I didn’t want that life, I wanted something new. I still wanted you.’ Eve had thought it before but saying it out loud was something else. ‘Maybe I am a monster.’

‘You’re not a monster, Eve.’ Villanelle was certain.

Eve laughed. ‘Coming from you that doesn’t mean much. You don’t even want to be a good person.’

‘No, I don’t. I want to be me, not a shifting idea of morality. But if it helps you sleep at night you can be both. You can have killed and still be a good person. You can have never killed and be a bad person.’

‘I don’t know if I want to be a good person anymore,’ Eve admitted.

‘It is a lot of work,’ Villanelle agreed, smiling. Then softly added, ‘Just be you, Eve.’

Villanelle’s acceptance let Eve exhale. It was worlds apart from manipulation and possession.

‘Come with me,’ Villanelle tried again, her eyes boring into Eve’s.

Eve’s chin wrinkled. God, she wanted to say yes. She wanted to give up and walk away with Villanelle and that’s precisely why Eve shook her head.

With that, the intimacy snapped. Villanelle’s jaw clenched and she sat up abruptly, pulling the sheets back from her side of the bed and ripping off her coat.

Eve sat up. ‘Ah. What are you doing?’

‘Going to sleep,’ she mumbled.

‘Not in my bed you’re not.’

She turned back to Eve with an equally mischievous and cruel grin. ‘There is only two bed. The other bed is for Oksana and Nina. Nina only slept on the couch last night because she wouldn’t let me come in and disturb you.’

‘No.’ Was all Eve managed.

‘This is my safe house. My safe bed. Sleep on the couch if you don’t like it.’ 

‘Fine,’ Eve said taking the pillow she’d been hugging, she tried to take a second, but Villanelle snatched it first. Villanelle could be cruel when she wanted to be.

On her way to the couch, Eve encountered Nina in the kitchen. They exchanged tired smiles. With a huff, Eve threw her pillow onto the couch and unfurled the blankets from the end of it.

Nina lingered. If she could have spoken to Eve, it felt like she had something of note to say. Eventually, the door to her room shut and the light overhead went out.

****

First Eve’s toes went numb, then her both feet. She stuffed her hand beneath her to keep the feeling in her fingers. The cold chilled her anger and she finally admitted defeat, dragging her blanket and pillow back into Villanelle’s room.

She hoped Villanelle would be asleep, that she could just get in unnoticed. As she peeled back the blanket Villanelle said, her voice breathy, soft and a little confused, ‘Hey?’

Still, she scooted over. Quickly Eve got in, letting the warmth of Villanelle’s body cocoon her. She pulled the quilt tightly around her, rolling away from Villanelle.

‘Shut up,’ Eve mumbled.

Eve couldn’t hear it, but she felt Villanelle’s giggle bubbling in her chest. Then the sheets ruffle and a long arm came around her, Villanelle used it to draw the rest of her body flush with Eve’s.

Eve tried to ignore her and shut her eyes, but she could feel every curve of Villanelle’s body against her back. Eve shivered involuntarily and Villanelle squeezed her tighter in reassurance and nestled into Eve’s neck. As she did Eve felt the ridges of two hard nipples against her back.

‘Are you naked?’ Eve asked.

‘So?’ Villanelle purred into Eve’s neck. Her warm breath spilling into Eve’s hair.

Eve went to push her off, but Villanelle held on and bit Eve’s ear playfully. Her intention didn’t matter to Eve who exploded out of Villanelle’s embrace, rolling until she straddled Villanelle. Eve used the grasp she’d taken on Villanelle’s throat to hold herself up.

The blankets fell from her back. The sliver of light from the hall let her see Villanelle splayed out naked beneath her, her eyes gleaming wild dots, her hair was loose and her breasts broke out in goosebumps as the cold air rushed between them.

‘Eve,’ Villanelle cautioned, her hand hovering near Eve’s grip on her throat, monitoring the pressure.

Again, Eve found herself unsure of how she got there, on top of Villanelle, her hand wrapped around her throat. She’d just reacted. It scared her to feel like she’d lost control. Beneath her palms, Eve could feel the rumble of Villanelle’s voice, in her fingers, she could feel her pulse. A steady, trusting beat. And Eve realised Villanelle wasn’t scared of her, even when she scared herself.

Eve loosened her hands, letting Villanelle take a full breath between her hands. Then Eve craned forward using the hold she had on Villanelle’s throat to bring their lips together.

She felt Villanelle tense up underneath her for a moment, not sure what was happening then she settled into it, her hands resting on Eve’s thighs.

Villanelle’s greedy intake of breath morphed into a moan. She sighed Eve’s name against her lips in relief, in worship. Her tone took Eve by surprise. She’d expect lust. This was a confused mingling of lust and love, and it made Eve consider for the first time if Villanelle had really meant it when she said she loved her that day in Rome.

Villanelle sat up, chasing Eve’s lips. As she moved, Eve shifted into Villanelle’s lap. Her hands found a new home on Villanelle’s hips. And her thumb scrapped the smooth surface of Villanelle’s scar. It was surprisingly small, she felt Villanelle’s intake of breath as she grazed it. Maybe it still hurt, Eve wondered. Maybe her hands were cold.

Blindly, Villanelle’s fingers searched for Eve’s, it was easy to stumble across. Warm hands traced the mark as she moved to find the one on her back. The wound had healed over but a phantom pain rocketed through Eve’s side at Villanelle’s touch. The scar recognising its maker. It felt like a sign. As Villanelle’s fingers unintentionally grazed the band of Eve’s underwear tracing the enterance wound, it felt like too much and Eve pulled back.

Villanelle chased her lips for a second before opening her eyes to realise the shift in Eve’s expression. She didn’t press it, falling back against the pillow in surrender her hands spilling wide. Eve stayed on top of her, gathering her breath and her thoughts now that all her senses weren’t filled with Villanelle.

From beneath her, Villanelle waited for a wall to descend over Eve’s eyes, for Eve to start choking her for or for her to leave.

Surprising Villanelle, Eve reached for her hand, entangling their fingers before she rolled to her side dragging Villanelle’s arm around her again. It mimicked their earlier embrace.

With her face buried in Eve’s hair; Villanelle found herself laughing. ‘You’re killing me, Eve.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dunno why but this chapter was particularly hard for me to write. I'm gonna blame the fight scene. So many limbs.  
> If you've made it this far and you're enjoying it feel free to comment or leave a kudos. I'd love to hear from you guys. xxx


	17. Selfish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle and Eve are hiding out in a safe house. After opening a little more about their feelings for each other they face a new challenge and their paths threaten to diverge once again. Eve wants to hunt the Twelve and Villanelle wants out.

At first, Villanelle thought she was dreaming when she woke up with Eve in her arms. The experience extended to consume all her senses and she realised it was real.

Eve’s hair was really tickling her nose. That sound was her soft sleepy exhale.

Villanelle refused to move. She didn’t want to risk waking Eve.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d woken up next to someone who wasn’t a stranger. Regardless, nothing compared to being with Eve. That soul-crushing boredom didn’t rise within her and the fidgeting inside of her stopped. She was caught instead by a warm new feeling. She felt content. Yeah, that seemed like the right word.

Villanelle would let her whole life pass her by if she could just stay here, like this forever. She knew this is where she belonged. She needed Eve to see that too.

The moment was so gentle and fragile. Eventually, inevitably, Eve stirred in her arms.

‘Morning,’ Eve breathed with a casualness that made Villanelle’s heart swell.

Villanelle buried in Eve’s hair until the cold tip of her nose reached her neck. They held each other tighter.

Eve didn’t want to get up either.

But unlike Villanelle, Eve couldn’t find complete peace. Their feelings for each other might have reached a resolution of sorts but on the matter of leaving London they were not united. That unsettled Eve and gave every touch an expiry date.

As Villanelle’s arms pulled them ever closer, Eve decided, she wouldn’t, couldn’t ask Villanelle to stay for her. It wouldn’t be fair. It’s not like Eve had a plan. She only had her stubbornness and a burdened conscience. She was hoping that alone would be enough to put some pressure on the Twelve.

She decided it didn’t matter what Eve thought of Villanelle’s plan to go Berlin. And that she didn’t think there was anywhere in the world the Twelve couldn’t find Villanelle. It wasn’t her place. She wasn’t impartial. She wanted Villanelle, this, forever.

In Eve’s eyes they were at an odd crossroads, Villanelle finally had something to lose, a family, while Eve had nothing. Well, nothing except Villanelle. She’d lost Niko, whether he was alive or not. She’d lost her whole life. She understood the weight of asking Villanelle to stay. So, she wouldn’t.

That didn’t mean she didn’t want to let it all go and follow Villanelle, start a new journey, and find out what kind of life, if any, they could have together. But she couldn’t. Even now, warm and otherwise at peace, it grated at Eve. She knew she couldn’t move on without at least trying to take down the Twelve and that wasn’t something Villanelle shared in, she was ready for her happy ending, Eve still needed to win.

Neither probed into the others silence. Writing it off as the other slowly waking, even as their own thoughts spiraled around their future.

In the end, Villanelle broke the embrace when they heard Nina was out of bed, bringing the house to life.

Eve watched as Villanelle sit at the edge of the bed, shrugging into her clothes. They were stiff with dirt and sweat. She noticed they were the same clothes Villanelle had been in the night they reunited. Villanelle’s decision to sleep naked suddenly made a little more sense.

After months of intoxicating yearning, Eve was surprised that casual affection, even the close proximity was enough to drive her crazy. As always, they were hyper aware of each other. Nothing was casual, Villanelle touching Eve’s hip to pass her in the kitchen, their knees touching under the table or even Villanelle laying her hand over Eve’s. It all felt as intense as the night prior.

At breakfast Villanelle tried to play footsies with Eve under the table.

Nina didn’t comment, endeavouring to ignore them as she caught a rocking sausage with her folk. The wide grin Villanelle shot at Eve was a pretty clear sign that their argument had stalled. Nina’s expressionless face made Eve wonder if she preferred them fighting. Needless to say, Nina left the table after she finished, opting for the couch, taking Oksana with her.

Villanelle looked at Eve across the table, fiddling with her knuckles. Everything felt perfect, better than she had imagined. She had to wonder what was missing. Twice now Villanelle had asked Eve to come with them to Berlin and twice she’d rejected her, fiercely. It forced Villanelle to wonder what was missing. Why was Eve hesitating? Was something holding her back, some loose end? Did she need Villanelle to prove she wasn’t going to hurt her again, that she’d grown?

‘Are you going to run off again today?’ Eve asked, picking at her food. Villanelle had already finished.

Villanelle nodded and considered it was probably time to catch Eve up on everything now they weren’t ignoring each other. ‘The passports are meant to be coming today. If the guys Konstantin put me in contact with are any good. So, we need to deal with that body so we can leave first thing tomorrow.’

Eve cocked an eyebrow. ‘I thought you handled it.’

‘I half handled it.’

‘How do you half dispose of a body?’ Eve imagined a set of disembodied legs laying in the back of the car. She looked down the two sausages on her plate.

‘We aren’t disposing of it. Not completely. We need them to think that body is you, remember, so we need someone to find it. Then you can be free and dead.’ Villanelle’s tone was casual. She plucked a sausage from Eve’s plate, the casing popped as she took a bite.

‘Stop saying we.’ She frowned at Villanelle eating her food, leaning back in her seat. ‘How do you even do that? How do you make MI6, or anyone, think it’s me?’

Villanelle pouted. She snatched the second sausage from Eve’s plate, playfully she tutted, ‘You’re not going to help?’

‘Give me that.’ Suddenly that sausage was incredibly important to Eve. She leapt forward at Villanelle, who simply extended her arm in the air to keep it out of Eve’s reach.

‘You don’t get to know how if you don’t want to help.’ Villanelle’s eyes were playful. ‘Come on, we could make a date of it.’

Eve yanked at Villanelle’s elbow; she had to play dirty. Villanelle hadn’t expected that, and the greasy sausage fell from her grip. Their eyes snapped down to the floor to find Oksana at their feet, seated on the pillow of her diaper, her hand reaching for the hunk of half eaten breakfast sausage where it lay at the end of its oily trail.

‘Oksana!’ Nina shouted.

 _‘Which one?_ ’ Villanelle smirked at her watching Oksana struggle to pick it up.

‘ _Both of you. Don’t let her eat that!’_ Nina yelled.

Villanelle caught Oksana’s little hand before it reached the food then dumped it on her plate, pulling Oksana into her arms.

Eve hadn’t caught anyone of that Nina’s expression said it all. She was not impressed.

It didn’t halt Villanelle train of thought erupting from her lips as she crossed the room to join her on the couch, _‘You know, I’ve been thinking about this same name thing. It can get confusing. I think we should call her Junior.’_ As Villanelle spoke, she pinched the short hairs on Oksana’s head into a mohawk.

 _‘No.’_ Nina’s reply was swift. She toppled the tepee of hair Villanelle had created.

 _‘What? Why not?’_ Villanelle demanded _. ‘Men get to do it all the time. Half the world is named after them. They get to have a legacy. Don’t you want to stick it to the patriarchy? We can have our own legacy. Imagine –.’_

Nina cut her off _. ‘I hate the patriarchy too but you’re not calling my daughter Junior.’_ Villanelle frowned about to inject again when Nina touched her cheek and continued, _‘You are the one who can’t settle on a name. Oksana. Villanelle. Katya. Surely, you can give this one to your niece.’_

Villanelle pouted. ‘ _I suppose.’_

Eve had tuned out. She couldn’t follow what they were saying, instead she let her eyes settle on the television screen. She wasn’t really watching until a familiar red brick caught her attention. Eve did a double take. That was her house splashed across the morning news, draped with police tape.

An old photo of her and Niko faded into frame. In it, they were in love, looking at each other with crinkly eyes and wide smiles.

Eve cranked up the volume, moving to stand before the screen.

It stayed on the photo of the two of them as the news woman said, ‘The husband remains in a serious condition in St Thomas’ Hospital. Authorities urge anyone with knowledge of this attack or Eve Polastri’s whereabouts to come forward.’

A phone number looped the bottom of the screen. It didn’t feel real, but he was alive. She squeezed the wedding band in her pocket. The segment was over too quickly.

‘Hmm,’ Villanelle offered acknowledging she’d seen it too. She was a little surprised.

‘He’s alive.’ Eve had to say it out loud.

‘I don’t like this.’ Villanelle frowned, standing beside Eve.

Why now? MI6 tended to keep anything related to the Twelve under wraps. That’s what Villanelle had been banking on. Eve’s face being publicised was not a good thing. Villanelle supposed she was lucky they hadn’t decided to throw her photo up there too. The segment was vague. Maybe they didn’t know much, and this was their last-ditch effort to put things together. Villanelle hoped that was the case, but it made her uneasy.

‘I have to see him.’ Eve still stared at the screen.

‘It’s too dangerous. You’re meant to be dead.’ Villanelle’s response was unyielding.

‘I need to know he’s okay.’

Villanelle stabbed a finger at the TV. ‘He _is_ alive. I think that qualifies as him being okay.’

Eve continued, ‘And that he doesn’t hate me.’

Villanelle rolled her eyes, knowing Eve wouldn’t see. Foolishly, Villanelle had thought she was free of Niko. ‘You know you can’t.’

‘Fine.’ There was an edge to Eve’s voice. It definitely wasn’t fine. She stepped closer to Villanelle, her tone shifted, ‘If I can’t, you could-.’

‘No.’ Villanelle was deadpan as she cut her off. She could guess what Eve was going to say and she didn’t want to hear it. Eve wanted her to go for her.

‘Please.’ Eve’s words hitched.

Eve touched Villanelle’s face to make their eyes met. Villanelle’s brow furrowed as she searched Eve’s eyes. She understood Eve. She could read those eyes. Uncertainty swarmed in them; desperation dominated. They were pleading. But Villanelle couldn’t understand why Eve felt that way.

Villanelle didn’t break from Eve’s touch. She wanted to understand. ‘Why do you need this? It’s over.’

Her question forced Eve to dive deep into the mess inside of her for an answer. Why did she need this? Finally, she uttered, ‘I need to set him free.’

Guilt.

Villanelle spotted it. Hiding itself in Eve’s pain. Niko. That was it. The guilt he burdened Eve with was one of the things holding her here. If that’s what Eve needed, to say goodbye to her old life even if Villanelle didn’t like it, she would do it for her. She wanted to make sure when she asked Eve to come with her again, she’d say yes.

‘Give me the ring.’ Villanelle’s voice was flat.

Eve’s hand covered the imprint of Niko’s ring in her sweatpants protectively. She hadn’t thought Villanelle had seen it.

Villanelle supressed an eye roll. ‘He won’t believe you’re alive without some proof.’

Hesitantly, she lay the band in her waiting hand.

**Kenny - St Thomas’ Hospital**

Kenny was in a losing battle against the heaviness of his eyes. He and Hugo had been sitting in a nondescript car across the street from the hospital for four hours.

Hugo abruptly jerked the radios volume up. It snapped Kenny to attention. He sat forward in his seat and wrung out his eyes.

It was all catching up to him. To say he was spreading himself thin would be an understatement. If he wasn’t at work, he was helping Elena take care of Erin. He’d been on his way home to give himself over to sleep after being up all day and night when Carolyn called him. She’d been short on the details. But she wanted two people to watch the hospital. Kenny did manage to deduce these were her orders, not MI6’s. Overtired or not, if there was a chance it would help them find Eve Kenny was in.

Eve’s disappearance sat with him, always, a pit in his stomach. If he just had proof, she was alive, then maybe he could sleep.

Last night in place of their date night Elena and Kenny had poured over the oddly thin case file. None of it made sense. The puzzle pieces weren’t from the same image.

Eve’s place was an apparently a mess. A whole clip of ammunition had been fired into the floorboards. A rug was missing from the living room. Most notable a knife tipped with a few drops of Villanelle’s blood had been left on the kitchen counter along with the ruins of Eve’s phone. Then there was Niko, the only witness. His injuries were in line with someone falling down the stairs, but the fact his wife was missing when he woke up made the fall seem less innocent.

The simple answer appeared to be that Villanelle had taken Eve. But even then, it didn’t sit right. Why leave a knife with her blood on it behind if she’s willing to move a whole rug? Why not kill Niko? Why alert the whole neighbourhood by firing a gun? The pieces worked against each other.

And why now? She’d been quiet for months. It made even less sense when Kenny remembered that they had seen each other after Villanelle had shot her. Why not kidnap Eve then? What had changed? The timing unnerved him. Eve had just been suspended. At this point Kenny would have thought she was more in danger from the Twelve than Villanelle.

What _was_ clear to Kenny was that someone wanted Eve out of the game. And now she was.

Then there was Niko. He’d barely regained consciousness. No one had been able to talk to him yet. Kenny couldn’t fathom how or why he was alive? No matter who had come after Eve leaving Niko was just unwise. And Villanelle would have relished killing him.

Since Clive had stepped in to lead the investigation and the team had been politely sidelined, Carolyn had been captured by a quiet focus. She had a theory; Kenny could sense it. A theory she didn’t trust to MI6. He didn’t blame her from keeping her cards close to her chest, even with him. Still he wondered what she hoped to achieve by this. Maybe she’d identified Niko as a loose end as well and hoped someone would come back to finish the job, revealing the identity of party responsible. That gave him a little hope. And made the mindless task of watching the hospital feel like progress.

Hugo and Kenny sat in a sedated silence for hours until Hugo announced seemly out of nowhere, ‘I don’t think she’s dead.’ His feet were up on the dashboard, one on either side of the wheel.

‘I hope not.’ Kenny agreed.

Hugo held up a finger and said, unprompted, ‘I think Eve and Villanelle are shacked up somewhere living out all their maniacal sexual fantasies.’

Kenny stifled a yawn. ‘You mean your fantasies.’

Hugo grinned at him. ‘They want to fuck.’

Kenny frowned out the window. They had undeniable connection, sure. Eve had a weakness for Villanelle, but he thought of Bill.

‘Eve wouldn’t,’ Kenny shot back.

Hugo sucked his teeth. ‘She wants to.’

**EVE – SAFE HOUSE  
**

Villanelle’s demeanour made Eve uneasy. She was unpredictable at the best of time and she’d just left without a word

Eve felt a knot tie itself in her stomach knowing she had to wait. She was already having second thoughts. What if it is a trap?

Nina was perceptive, it felt like she read it all on Eve’s face. Eve couldn’t even hide behind a well-crafted lie. Nina came to sit beside her. Eve thought she was offering her silent company until Nina pointed to the door where Villanelle had disappeared and to Eve then to Eve’s heart.

It was imperfect but Eve put it together.

_Do you love her?_

Without an abundance of language to make it complicated, forced to simplify things, Eve found herself nodding.

Nina nodded as well, in understanding. Things were falling into place for her. Villanelle hadn’t been forthcoming about who Eve was, what she meant to her. Maybe it was some misguided attempt to actually be a big sister, but she wanted to understand Eve and her intentions.

So far, Nina could tell it was complicated, as all love was. She could only imagine it was heightened exponentially by Villanelle’s lifestyle. More complicated than something a game of charades could articulate but Villanelle hadn’t giving her much, she would have to try getting answers from Eve.

Nina took Eve’s hand and mimed an airplane. Not her best work, but Eve got what she meant.

_Then come with us._

Eve shook her head. She couldn’t do that. How could Eve show Nina even a glimpse of the decision she was making? And how it was ripping her apart?

Nina frowned not sure how to communicate her next point. She locked two of her fingers together, each from one hand then held them upright. The two fingers were bound together in an embrace, Eve took them to represent her and Villanelle, then violently Nina ripped them apart. Nina made a heart over her own and broke it.

Again, Eve nodded. As if she was prepared to die but not break her own heart for what she thought was right. Villanelle would be safe. At least Eve hoped, she hoped Villanelle’s optimism was more accurate than her pessimism. Villanelle finally had a life. Eve wanted that for her.

Nina shook her head and pointed to the door again. Then Eve understood, Nina wasn’t worried about her heart.

_You’ll break her heart._

Eve didn’t have an answer for that. 

**Villanelle – St Thomas’ Hospital**

Every inch of Niko’s body was uncomfortable. The slow drip of morphine had taken the pain from him but there was anguish in discomfort. Not to mention the very tip of his nose itched and he had no means of scratching it.

A neck brace limited his field of vision to the ceiling. He could hear a television out of sight whispering to him. His broken arm was heavy on his chest. The sprained wrist of his other arm limp at his side.

The two patients he shared the room with spoke occasionally but never to him. His world was narrowed to the four ceiling tiles above him.

Niko was stuck in a purgatory of his thoughts. His memory was bitsy. He could remember finding the box of gifts in their wardrobe. He could remember them fighting about it, well, he could remember yelling and Eve just taking it. Whenever she raised her voice to interject, he would cut her down. He felt like a ripe bag of shit about that now she was gone.

Fruitlessly, he wondered what she was going to say. If things would be different now if he had listened. He was still mad at her, but are things ever that simple? He hadn’t wished for this.

That’s about where his memory ran dry and headfirst into a roadblock of guilt. Objectively, he knew he ended up down the bottom of the stairs. He had the wounds to prove it. He called out to Eve in his thoughts, searched for her face, but he saw nothing but the yellowed ceiling tiles of the hospital.

Loud footsteps approached. Boots. Not the padded footfalls of the hospital staff. The privacy curtain was pulled around his bed.

He expected Carolyn’s face to rise into his view coming finally to pick his already picked brain.

Villanelle’s grinning face loomed over him instead.

He didn’t even think to call for help. There was something more pressing than his safety, the words burst from him. ‘Where is Eve?’

The show of desperation made Villanelle’s smile widen. She said nothing, leaning in a little closer, her hands tucked behind her back. Even immobile Niko glared at her with such rage, hatred in fact. Then his eyes flashed with fear as he realised, she could do anything she wanted to him.

He flinched when Villanelle reached into her pocket to hold up a wedding ring, his wedding ring, the edges smoothed and worn down. The gold seemed duller than he remembered. She placed it out of his field of vision on the dinky swivel tray that housed his straw and cup of water.

‘She’s alive.’ The words squeezed out through gritted teeth. She had to remind herself this was for Eve. Still she hated the way his face lit up. If it were up to her, he’d never know. He’d suffer.

His face soured as he thought of the ring. What did it even mean anymore? It was just a symbol of all that was lost, all that was broken.

‘You should forget about her, Niko.’ Villanelle felt the zing of Eve’s lips against hers as she spoke.

His better arm smacked the plastic tray and the ring flew, rolling under the curtain and out of sight.

This was the reaction Villanelle wanted. He didn’t deserve peace. She wanted him to suffer, to labour over what her showing up meant for the rest of his life, to wonder if she was being truthful.

If he managed to believe Eve was alive, he’d have to realise something else, that Eve had chosen Villanelle. That what they shared meant more than anything he had with Eve. Dead or alive, he’d lost her.

As she saw that settle in for Niko, she turned to part the curtain, satisfied.

‘She’ll never love you.’ He spat the words at Villanelle like razor blades.

Villanelle stopped. He didn’t know it, but he’d said the only words that could cut her. She clamped her eyes shut; against her will she was back in the ruins. She heard Eve reject her over and over again.

Villanelle was stranded, forever waiting for Eve to say she loved her back, even as she begs Eve never does, she never sets her free. Villanelle suddenly felt so cold. Like the air that rushing between them as Eve broke their kiss. The cold carried the loneliness back to her.

He brought to the surface the question that had been plaguing Villanelle even though she hadn’t admitted it to herself. Did Eve love her? Could she ever? Was that why Eve wouldn’t come with her? She didn’t feel strongly enough about Villanelle.

Villanelle doesn’t let Niko see the true effect of his words when she turned back around. She masked it, pushing her lips from their frown into a sarcastic pout.

‘That’s not true.’ She tried to sound sure.

He went quiet. His bravery was zapped and replaced by fear. She moved a greasy lock of hair from his eyes. Her own were cold as her fingers found the warm tubing that ran from his thigh to a drainage bag half filled with amber liquid and mounted to his bed frame.

In one swift motion she yanked out his catheter.

Niko howled.

**KENNY - St THOMAS’ HOSPITAL  
**

Kenny realised the apparent flaw in their plan to stake out the hospital when someone actually showed up.

Villanelle was nonchalant as she entered, raising no suspicion from the bystanders around her, to them she was another visitor. Hugo, however, choked on his coffee while smacking Kenny.

They spent a good five minutes panicking. What were they going to do handcuff her? Overpower her? Even two on one they didn’t like their chances. Kenny called Carolyn. She was less surprised by the development.

Villanelle was already exiting, moving on foot.

 _‘Well, go on follow her,’_ was Carolyn’s only impatient instruction.

Villanelle walked a few blocks before getting into a nondescript beige car. There were some mud splatters around the tires and a sheen of dust on the body.

So, they followed her as she pushed her way out of the city.

Kenny was on edge. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d seen them. Her pace didn’t indicate his fears, she stuck to the speed limit.

Anytime she slipped from their immediate sight, Hugo’s foot was heavy on the pedal. The engine roared to keep chase. Kenny would have to remind him to fall back even though he understood Hugo’s eagerness, they were close to something, good or bad, they were inching closer to Eve.

The landscape shifted around them. Trees replaced buildings and wild grass took the place of pavement.

Taking them off guard, Villanelle turned down an overgrown dirt path. Hugo slowed at the entrance. It was a long driveway. A small house in disrepair sat at the heart of the property. They watched Villanelle’s car pull in behind the house.

Hugo moved them out of the sight and off the road. He cut the engine.

Kenny imagined Villanelle’s taste in hideouts would be a little more extravagant than this, the place looked condemned. The only sign it was at all inhabited or inhabitable was the trail of smoke billowing from an out of sight chimney.

It gave him a little hope Eve was inside and alive. Who leaves a fire on when no one is home?

‘We should wait for back up,’ Kenny said.

Hugo didn’t listen. He was already out the car walking in the path of settling dust from Villanelle’s wheels. The house seemed to get smaller as they got closer, it had no depth, it had maybe two rooms, tops.

Hugo walked up the concrete porch, peering into the broken window. He tried the door.

‘It’s all boarded up,’ he reported, suspicion crept into his voice.

They investigated the back of the house. A weak veranda strung the back of the house to what looked like an eroded outdoor oven, its cavity was bricked up. The car Villanelle had been driving was parked in the narrow space between it and the house. The driver’s seat was empty.

Kenny pressed his face to the glass, the inside was bare, just tinted grey interior.

Another car’s engine echoed through the property, starting up. He did a double take, but Hugo was still behind him. The engine screeched and ground before finally humming to life. Kenny followed the sound around to the front of the house, circling it.

A car disguised by the overgrown foliage leapt from its cover and back out onto the road, so fast Kenny couldn’t make out the plates. They were just a blur. Adrenaline jolted him into action, he was rushing back to their car follow to her when Hugo called to him.

Hugo was still by the decoy car, stuck staring at that large oven segment of the stone wall. He pointed wordlessly to the bloom of smoke rising from a chimney at the back of it. This was the source of the smoke.

Heat peeled from it. The fire that had fueled it was cooling. The belly of the oven was huge, it was hard to tell how big with the mouth of it bricked up, presumably to lock in more heat. Racks of shelving where lent up beside the stone wall.

Hugo ran up to it, his icy fingers trying to rip at the bricks free to get inside. His hands flinched back. The bricks hissed as they burned layers of skin from his fingertips. He pulled his sleeves over his hands and tried again.

Kenny didn’t know what he was doing, slowly he reached the same conclusion as Hugo.

It was big enough to burn a body.

Kenny pulled him back. He edited his words to quell Hugo’s panic, ‘Whatever is in there is long gone.’

Hugo looked down at the skin simmering on his hands. He let Kenny guided him back to the car, out of the sight of the eerily thick smoke.

‘Let’s call it in.’

****

Hugo sat on the passenger side with the door open while Kenny fumbled through the medical kit for something to bind his hands. He tossed through it, bandages fluttered on to the road, getting stranded in puddles.

‘She wanted us to follow her,’ Kenny muttered, his eyebrows were scrunched together. Harshly, he wound the bandage around Hugo’s hands. ‘That would have taken days to burn.’

‘Ouch,’ Hugo whined trying to yank his hands away.

‘Sorry,’ Kenny mumbled, loosening the binds.

‘Villanelle really did it,’ Hugo mused. His eyes were lost in the wisps of smoke dispersing above them.

‘We don’t know what is in there,’ Kenny persisted. He wanted to vomit.

‘Yeah,’ Hugo humoured him, deriving no hope from that logic.

**EVE – SAFE HOUSE**

Eve didn’t have a nervous habit, a comforting tick. The last few days were making her seriously considering acquiring one. She needed something to do that wasn’t worrying and waiting.

After their brief chat, if one could even call it that, Nina steered clear of Eve, busied by Oksana.

If a few days ago Eve had been given a thousand guesses to determine what her future held she never would have guessed she’d be hanging out with Villanelle’s sister and niece.

Then the passports arrived, and Eve only grew more distant. Well, she assumed they were the passports, she hadn’t opened the envelope. A barrel bodied man who reminded her of Konstantin had delivered them. He lacked a jolly laugh and said nothing as he handed them over, the backfiring of his car said goodbye for him.

Now they sat on the table before Eve. For a moment she managed to wonder what kind of alias Villanelle had chosen this time, what hair colour and what fake identity she’d produced for Nina. Just a moment.

Eve had felt resolved, resolute about her choice to stay but their arrival spiked her anxiety. Villanelle leaving had abruptly shifted from an abstract idea to a foreboding reality. Eve was realising how unprepared she was, she hadn’t even devised the first steps of her masterplan. Without MI6 and Carolyn backing her up she was severely limited. But in other ways she was free, there were no rules to follow. No higher ups to keep comfortable. Her thoughts wandered to the safe she’d found in Raymond’s house, that was exactly the kind of thing Eve hadn’t been able to investigate under MI6. Now, Carolyn might not be able to stop her, but that combination lock sure would.

Eve didn’t know the first thing about living a covert existence. She just hoped that she’d be able to stay here while she figured it out once Villanelle was gone. Her stomach twisted again.

Eve skipped dinner. It was baked beans on toast and some pureed mush for Oksana.

Villanelle still hadn’t come back. New worried thoughts joined the growing chorus. What if something had happened? What if she’d been caught by MI6 or the Twelve?

Eve waited up in the dark. If she chewed her nails, she’d have none left by the time the headlights lit the front yard. Eve could have sworn the car was different to the one Villanelle left in. The screen door eased open and Villanelle turned on the light. It was too bright for both their eyes.

Villanelle blinked at Eve surprised to find her waiting. ‘Shouldn’t you be in bed?’

Villanelle’s expression was odd, like she’d wished Eve were asleep.

Eve ignored her question instead taking in the designer bags filling Villanelle’s hands. Her tone was a little stiff when she asked, ‘How did it go?’

Villanelle averted her eyes, putting the bags down to go through them. ‘Mhmm. Good.’

‘Did he say anything? Is he okay?’ Eve persisted. Villanelle arriving in one piece had resolved none of Eve’s worries. She could tell something was off and she wasn’t delighted Villanelle had decided to go shopping while Eve was stuck here worrying. Not to mention that left a hunk of unaccounted for time between going shopping and coming back, Villanelle had been avoiding her.

‘He was pretty rude actually,’ Villanelle said admiring a red skirt.

Eve stood up, hoping that would force Villanelle to look at her. It didn’t and Eve yanked the skirt from her hands and tried again, demanding, ‘What happened?’

Villanelle sighed, like Eve was the one being exhausting. She was deliberately flippant with her answer, ‘I told him you were alive. He basically told me to go fuck myself, so I ripped out his catheter then I led your friends to that woman’s body. You’ll be officially dead in a few days. You’re welcome.’

Eve thought Villanelle sounded cold. While she processed everything, Villanelle snatched back the skirt.

‘You did what?’ Eve stopped herself from raising her voice, dragging out each syllable instead. Villanelle’s demeanour made more sense to Eve now. She’d lost control, the question Eve had was why? Villanelle didn’t have any reason to harm Niko. It was the epitome of punching down at this point.

Villanelle rounded on Eve finally met her eyes. Her nostrils flared and her eyes shined. ‘Why did you ask me to do that? When you know-.’

Her words broke off and the pain in Villanelle’s expression struck Eve.

‘Know what?’ Eve prompted.

‘How I feel about you,’ Villanelle shied away from those words.

‘I thought I could trust you not to hurt him.’ Eve felt betrayed.

‘He’s fine. At worst he’ll piss a little blood. I’m sure it’s not even the worst part of his week.’ Villanelle’s tone was dismissive, trying to redirect Eve’s attention as her eyes were still demanding an answer.

Villanelle didn’t get it. It didn’t matter the degree to which she’d hurt Niko but that she _did_. That she crossed that line. Eve hadn’t intended to test Villanelle, but she’d failed. It watered a seed of doubt in Eve.

‘I asked you _because_ I know how you feel.’

Villanelle scoffed. ‘In that case, do you have any other errands you want me to run, hmm? Got a love letter for me to drop off to whoever you cheated on Niko with, want me to unburden him as well?’

‘Her,’ Eve corrected, regretting it immediately.

The train was off the tracks. Eve wasn’t sure how to right it.

‘Good for you.’ Villanelle stood a little taller, the jealously and hurt breaking out on her face. When she spoke her mouth twisted into a sneer, ‘Tell me Eve, did you sleep with her even once without thinking about me? Did you love _her_?’

‘Stop it.’

‘I love you,’ Villanelle said it, she needed to, she needed to see the impact it had on Eve, if any. She was trying to prompt Eve to say it back. ‘I came back for you. I risked everything. What more proof do you need? Come with me.’

Villanelle’s eyes pleaded with Eve; it softened her expression. She was begging for something. And Eve didn’t know what, she searched the hues of Villanelle’s eyes and found nothing. Eve felt like she was letting Villanelle down again, falling short of the idea she held of her.

Eve’s silence made Villanelle hope she’d get a different answer. Eventually, Eve shook her head.

Villanelle’s expression remained soft even as her jaw muscle jumped. ‘Then ask me to stay.’

It was an option Villanelle hadn’t considered much but desperate as she was, she dragged it onto the table between them. That would be enough, she could live without Eve’s admission of love if she just showed she wanted Villanelle in some way.

But that wasn’t Eve’s choice to make.

The hurt was still ripe in Eve’s chest as she took a back step. Villanelle’s face fell before Eve began to speak. ‘You still don’t understand what love is, do you?’

It was the first time either of them acknowledged this moments connection to that day in Rome. Neither of them wanted to drag those feelings up again, to be pulled back there, they had come so far since then. Yet it echoed through every word, every insecurity. Demanding to be acknowledged.

‘That isn’t true,’ Villanelle spat back. Righteous.

Eve knew where Villanelle’s mind went, what her core piece of evidence to the contrary was. She interjected before Villanelle could call it to her defense. ‘Caring about your sister and a kid who shares your name, your DNA doesn’t mean anything. Wild animals do that. Real love is selfless. I don’t think you can be selfless.’

It was a painful realisation. What if Villanelle couldn’t love her? What if all they had was their obsession and hurting one another? Eve didn’t want to hurt Villanelle, not anymore.

Eve had squashed Villanelle’s feelings again, disregarded them like she was mistaken. Villanelle swallowed hard.

_Real love is selfless._

The softness had died replaced by a ferocity. She didn’t care about being heard; she didn’t care about waking anyone up. She needed Eve to hear at least this.

‘You don’t get to decide how I feel. And that is such bullshit. So, I want you and nothing else and that still isn’t good enough. When is the last time you did something altruistic? By your standard you can’t say you ever loved Niko. You loved him because he made you feel normal. He made you like who you were. He made you feel like you were in control of yourself.’ Her chest was heaving when stopped speaking, something clicked. ‘Is that what you want? Someone to make you feel normal, in control?’

Villanelle could never be that. She didn’t want to be that.

Eve didn’t respond to Villanelle’s questions, instead she was trying to figure out how they’d got here. She didn’t want to fight. Eve’s eyes fell on the passports. She could hear the analogue clock in the kitchen ticking.

Villanelle watched the fight drain out of Eve.

Their time together was draining away. Suddenly it felt shallow to be attacking each other. 

Eve backpedalled. ‘Maybe you are right and we’re both too selfish.’

The words rang in Villanelle’s ears. Too selfish? Villanelle filled in the end of Eve’s sentence. Too selfish to love. Too selfish to be loved.

Eve used the worn-down tone she only ever employed when walking back fights with Niko, in lieu of an apology. ‘This is stupid. You’re right. I shouldn’t have asked that of you. Let’s just forget about it.’

They both knew they couldn’t, wouldn’t. Eve’s words were enough to halt further destruction, but it healed nothing.

**KENNY – CAROLYN’S HOUSE**

“Burnt beyond recognition” that was the phrase of the day. Kenny watched Carolyn’s face sour every time someone was brave enough to utter it in front of her.

She was musing out loud about it as Kenny unlocked their front door. He hasn’t been home in a while. He’d almost exclusively been staying with Elena; she wouldn’t be home yet, and he knew he probably shouldn’t be alone right now.

The smell of smoke and something else still clung to his clothes.

‘There is still a chance the body, well, what’s left of it, will tell us something. Erin doesn’t seem hopeful it will offer us anything conclusive, however. We have a body and a missing woman. Logic seems to provide us with an answer while science must hold its tongue.’

‘You’re not going make Erin -.’ He cut himself off imagine Erin examining the remaining for specks of Eve.

‘No, I’m not a monster.’

Kenny went quiet. He wouldn’t have put it past her.

Carolyn went ahead turning on the living room light. As Kenny went to disappear upstairs, she said, ‘It was a kiln. That oven thing, as you put it.’

Kenny backed up a few steps to see she was standing before a ceramic vase on their shelving. Aware he was waiting she continued, ‘A detail like that feels pointed at me.’

‘Why?’

‘Villanelle broke into our house. Broke my favourite amphora.’

‘What!’

She waved a hand. ‘It was ages ago.’

His head gave a painful thump. ‘How are you so calm? You need to tell me what’s going on.’

‘It was just a hunch. I didn’t believe Eve was dead.’ Her tone professed that she still wasn’t convinced.

‘You thought she might show up at the hospital?’

‘Or someone would come to finish Niko off, revealing their face. Which she did. But Villanelle left him alive, again. We need to talk to him.’

‘You mean MI6 should talk to him.’

‘No, I mean us, the team. I don’t know if I can trust MI6. Someone called off Eve’s security that night. There have been too many coincidences. Too many moments where the Twelve knew more than they should have.’

Some of it fell into place for Kenny. She’d sent Hugo and him after Villanelle so if miraculously they found Eve, they might be able to keep her out of MI6’s hands. Carolyn had an odd way of caring, but he refused to believe she was going to such lengths merely out of a professional interest in what information Eve might have. Like it or not Eve was a part of their weird little family.

‘So, is Villanelle back with the Twelve, or did she finally decided to end her and Eve’s game?’

Carolyn shook her head. ‘If she wanted Eve dead, she could have done it whenever she pleased. It seems more likely that she was protecting Eve.’

Kenny’s head thumped again. He squished his brows together. His brain was flip flopping to keep up with her. ‘How is murdering her and burning her body protecting Eve?’

‘It’s a theory. Just like you saying that body is Eve’s. Just a theory.’

Kenny was already mourning Eve. He didn’t know if he could start hoping she was alive again. And what did it even mean if Carolyn was right? If Eve was alive? At a glance that seemed worse to Kenny. Who was Eve if that was true? Surely not the woman he thought she was.

He asked the question he’d been neglecting because until now he couldn’t even begin to believe it. ‘Did Eve kill Raymond?’

Carolyn shrugged; it was inconsequential to her. It meant everything to Kenny. ‘I want to know what she knew, what someone might want to kill her for. If I can get you access to Eve’s work computer can you find out what she was looking into?’

She didn’t wait for his reply. It was a given.

**VILLANELLE – SAFE HOUSE**

Nina found Villanelle outside, sulking on the porch. She’d heard them fighting. It didn’t last long, fizzling out just as Nina was thinking about getting up to tell them to be quiet.

Villanelle pinned the wild rabbits bounding through the shrubbery with death glares.

Nina’s presence went unacknowledged as she joined her. _‘What happened?’_

Villanelle acted like she hadn’t said anything.

Nina produced her lighter and dangled a cigarette from her lips _. ‘Well, if you don’t want to talk…’_

Predictably, Villanelle plucked it from her lips. She stayed mute as she shifted to lay her head in Nina’s lap.

Surprised by the show of affection Nina lay a cautious hand on Villanelle’s hair and sighed. She took it as a sign Villanelle needed her to play at being her big sister.

She knew Villanelle was being pulled in every direction. Or perhaps just two, caught between Eve and her. Nina combed fingers through Villanelle’s hair, revealing her dark roots, their matching hair colour. It felt like Villanelle was slipping through her fingers in the silence.

_‘I’m not going to pretend I get it. You’re odd. She’s odd. And the thing you two have is weird and intense. But you can tell you love each other.’_

Villanelle scoffed; her eyes were back on the rabbits. _‘She doesn’t.’_

That took Nina by surprise. She hadn’t thought these two were stumbling over I love you’s. The mortal peril they have landed themselves in seemed more important.

 _‘She told me herself.’_ Told might be a little strong but Nina didn’t feel like explaining it.

 _‘She hasn’t even asked me to stay,’_ Villanelle said flatly, unconvinced.

Nina shrugged. _‘She’s in pain.’_

Villanelle’s brow crinkled. Not sure what that had to do with Eve’s injuries. _‘Her wounds will heal.’_

Nina let out a breathy laugh then shook her head. _‘Not the physical kind. Some people run when they hurt. She doesn’t seem the type. She wants to fight.’_

_‘What type are you?’_

Nina leant back against the wood deck, tilting to see the stars. _‘Well, my ex-boyfriend just died, the sister I thought was dead is actually alive not to mention a wanted assassin and I’m off to Berlin.’_

Nina’s tone was light, she thought she might win a laugh out of Villanelle. Instead the crease in her brow deepened, like she was grappling with a new concept.

_‘What am I?’_

Villanelle liked to play as if her staying behind with Eve wasn’t an option, even now but Nina knew what she was really asking. First, she’d hoped Eve would make the choice for her and now she was hoping Nina would.

Nina shrugged. _‘I love you, but I won’t pretend to know you. Not completely. You’ll have to figure that out and figure out if you want to leave. And you better, I don’t want your breakup ruining my holiday.’_

 _‘Holiday?’_ Villanelle snorted.

Her face had twitched a little at Nina’s assessment. But she was right. They didn’t know each other yet. Not the way siblings should.

Villanelle didn’t share a past with anyone. There were no living witnesses to those foggy memories. Konstantin might be her oldest friend. God, that was lame. It was an odd and short spiral of thought that brought her to the realisation that only Eve really knew her.

They shared secrets. They shared scars.

Eve had derailed Villanelle’s life, shifting her onto another timeline. Eve was all encompassing. Villanelle had always assumed Eve was her future. 

But Eve’s words had carved themselves behind Villanelle’s eyes.

Too selfish.

 _‘I don’t know what to do,’_ Villanelle admitted.

Nina had never been good at advice. She was more of a “do as a I say but not as I do” role model. She offered the best advice she had. _‘You have to consider all of it, or you’ll end up resenting her or me or yourself. If you leave, you must leave knowing what she plans to do. If you stay it must be your choice. Put in the time and you’ll arrive at what is right.’_

 _‘I’m not good at doing the right thing,’_ Villanelle admitted.

_‘Sometimes making the right choice is making the one you can live with.’_

_‘You need me.’_

Nina’s face cracked into a smile. _‘I speak better German than I do English and I’ve managed so far. You have a choice, what do you want?’_

Villanelle could always tell when she wanted something, she wanted everything. Now those two things were quarreling with each other. She wanted Eve and she wanted a family.

_‘If I stay, I give you two up.’_

Nina shook her head. _‘We’re not conditional.’_

Villanelle flipped belly up to look properly at Nina. She expected Nina to tell her staying would be selfish. Instead Nina was unshackling her from promise, telling her to choose without that burden. It was selfless.

****

Eve tried to sleep. The house was quiet. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was waiting for Villanelle. She was beginning to think Villanelle had decided to sleep on the couch when the door finally creaked open.

Villanelle smelt like the night air. Her skin was cold. She let Eve curl around her.

The same silence persisted, the one that had settled in after their fight. Eve didn’t know what to say to undo it, to restore them to the mood they had been in that morning.

Eve waited so long she was sure Villanelle had fallen asleep. She swallowed her “I love you” and whispered instead, ‘Wake me before you go.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a minute. 
> 
> I disappear and come back with 8k of angst. I don't know whether to apologise or say you're welcome :p  
> Got a bit caught up in life and wrote a bunch of things for KE week, so this kind fell off my radar for a minute. Also this chapter was really hard to write for some reason. But I'm currently drafting the next chapter so that should be up next week. It will be a doozy.  
> The angst will be worth it. 
> 
> This is the last time we see Niko. I just love using that boy's pain for the plot.
> 
> I have been using twitter a little more so if you want to keep in the loop with updates, that's probably a good place to check.
> 
> As always thanks for reading xx  
> let me know what you think
> 
> twitter: [ we_r_colleagues ](https://twitter.com/we_r_colleagues)  
> tumblr: [ we-are-colleagues ](https://we-are-colleagues.tumblr.com/)


	18. I'm Yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve finally says those three little words.

**EVE – SAFE HOUSE**

Her circumstance didn’t come to her immediately. The linens smelt like Villanelle, all cedar, and night air. With a waking yawn she drinks it in, stretching in the large cold expanse of the bed.

Then she remembered the warmth, the weight of Villanelle in her arms as she went to sleep. She’d woken to the absence of her.

The comfort was gone. The slow act of waking was shattered by the fear, then the heartache as she sat up and realised Villanelle was gone.

She imagined Villanelle peeling Eve’s fingerprints from her body, her long fingers undoing the threads of fate that had tangled them then slipping away.

Laying there, the sunlight smeared by her watery eyes, Eve thought of all the things she would have said if she’d got to say goodbye.

**VILLANELLE – AIRPORT**

The heartache was instantaneous. It made Villanelle long for the emptiness she drowned in before she met Eve. It affected her breathing, her heartbeat.

The miles stretching between her and Eve put a strain on her body, like gravity and velocity mounting as she tried to escape Eve’s atmosphere. She wondered how much distance it would take and at what speed for their bond to finally snap. This didn’t feel fast enough or far enough to escape her pull.

The old engine didn’t sound sturdy. Protesting every metre, they gained. It sounded unresolved as they pushed on. It didn’t sound like it would make it.

Villanelle wasn’t sure she could either.

Villanelle tried to tell herself she hadn’t run away. She just couldn’t see the look on Eve’s face as they said goodbye, it would cause her resolve to crumble. Instead, she stole a glance of Eve, peaceful in sleep and didn’t look back. Otherwise she knew she wouldn’t be able to do what was right.

And this was what was right, wasn’t it?

She let Nina drive. She might turn them around if her hands were on the wheel. She sat in the back, leaning over Oksana’s car seat. The hand holding her pinkie was as good as any harness to hold her in place.

She only looked up as they went undercover, as light was sucked from the car. They were in the airport's carpark. They planned to ditch the car here.

Too suddenly the engine cut.

Villanelle scanned the carpark. The few people moving through their floor don’t even offer them a glance.

No one noticed them.

Yet Villanelle felt like they were being watched.

Paranoia.

Villanelle was always aware, aware of the risks, aware of passing threats. This was different. There was a dread. A worry, that whatever danger lurked around the next corner could actually harm them. Before she hadn’t had anyone else to worry about. She just needed to be confident in her own abilities, but there were limits to those abilities. Now she had two other lives to protect.

Was this how it was going to be from now on, forever looking over her shoulder?

That wasn’t freedom.

Eve was right.

Maybe they could outrun the Twelve, but Villanelle couldn’t outrun this feeling.

‘Is it safe?’ Nina prompted her.

She cut another glance at the carpark. She nodded. There was no danger here, but that didn’t eliminate the sense of foreboding.

Nina went to the boot while Villanelle untangled Oksana from the web of seat belts. Villanelle let out a little groan as she hauled both herself and Oksana from the car.

‘She’s getting heavy, isn’t she?’ Nina commented, lifting her rather light suitcase from the trunk. It held only the few items she had snatched from her apartment in Moscow and the spill over of Villanelle’s shopping spree, an expensive pair of boots.

There was so much of her development Villanelle had already missed. She didn’t want to be a murky face in Oksana’s memories, like the ones that haunted hers.

As Villanelle marvelled at her, Oksana grabbed a chunk of her hair, tugging on it and inspecting the gold strands. ‘When will she start to talk?’

Nina had to think, dive back through the archives of books she consumed while she was pregnant, as she shut the boot. ‘Hmm… between twelve to eighteen months.’

Villanelle did the quick math and muttered a compromise to herself, ‘Six months.’

She could have this finished in six months. Sooner even. If she and Eve pulled it off that would be a worthy trade. Six months to guarantee a lifetime of this. Six months to make sure they were both safe. Six months to make sure Eve was safe.

Nina watched Villanelle kiss the top of Oksana’s head and knew. ‘Make your choice?’

‘I think so.’ It’s sheepish, adjacent to guilty.

‘I’m keeping the boots.’ Nina’s face didn’t waver. She stood beside her own luggage; she’d left Villanelle’s in the car. ‘At least, walk us to the gate?’

Villanelle nodded.

They were stopped at their gate, wordlessly. The three of them claimed by a stillness that displaced the chatter and hustle of the airport.

Villanelle wondered if she’d ever be like them. The people rushing, the ones never looking over their shoulder. The families embarking on adventures together rather than saying goodbye.

Initiating the hug was awkward, but the hug itself wasn’t. Nina’s arm came around her swiftly, without hesitation. Confused and amused, Oksana giggled as she was wedged between them.

It looked like any other farewell, aside from Nina whispering in Villanelle’s ear, ‘Don’t you dare die.’

‘Not a chance.’ She made her tone cocky, passing Oksana between them as she withdrew from the hug.

Oksana still clutched a fistful of her hair, which she refused to relinquish Villanelle had to untangle the strands from her fingers. Her hand stayed outstretched, Villanelle kissed the tiny fingers that reached for her.

‘Don’t get too big, Junior,’ Villanelle said, touching her cheek.

**EVE – SAFE HOUSE**

A sound coming from the kitchen fished Eve from her bed. She hadn’t seen much point in getting up and facing the empty house. Groggily, she padded to the living room to investigate.

The last thing Eve expected was before her, Villanelle, her bag discarded at feet standing inside the threshold.

Eve imagined this is the relief Orpheus would have felt if he managed to guide his lover out of hell. If he hadn’t fallen victim to fear and doubt. If he’d saved his glance for when his wife had crossed the threshold. And got to see the blood flushing her face by the light of the suns distant fire, rather than the burning flames of hell or his pale memory.

Villanelle was inside but she hesitated. Her expression was a puzzle Eve didn’t have the patience to unscramble as relief overtook her, and she crossed the room to pull Villanelle into her arms.

Eve couldn’t restrain herself. Believing she had lost Villanelle forever had driven her into a sorrow she could only liken to grief. It felt like Villanelle had come back from the dead, affording Eve an improbable and allusive second chance.

Something was wrong though. Villanelle was stiff in Eve’s embrace, unresponsive, almost absent from her body.

Eve pulled back, but not away, just enough to see Villanelle’s face and whispered; her tone sounded almost disapproving as she disguised her relief. ‘Why did you come back?’

Villanelle frowned at Eve, the words didn’t match her actions, the arms that clung to her.

Was Eve not happy to see her? Did she wish Villanelle had stayed away?

Villanelle traced a finger along Eve’s jawline, wishing she could read her thoughts and said, ‘Because I’m selfish.’

In silence that followed, Eve tried to poke at Villanelle’s meaning. On the surface, it was a jab, using Eve’s words against her. But she scratched a little deeper and there was a sea of insecurity. And the truth that Villanelle wanted Eve, perhaps more than anything else.

Eve grappled with that. This was surely the riskier path and it wasn’t what Villanelle wanted but she was _here_.

Eve held Villanelle’s hand against her cheek. ‘You know, I didn’t mean it like that.’

Eve didn’t get a chance to read the shift her words caused in Villanelle’s expression before she was being kissed. Villanelle swept the screen door closed then drove them deeper into the house, until Eve’s back knocked against the island bench. Swiftly and without breaking their kiss, Villanelle hoisted Eve on to it, cancelling out their height difference.

Eve locked her legs around Villanelle’s waist, deepening the kiss. But she received nothing back. Passion was exempt from Villanelle’s lips as they fought Eve’s.

Eve only held her tighter, closer, as if Villanelle would drift away if she didn’t. Her fingers roamed the surface of Villanelle’s back, beneath her jacket and over her linen shirt. There Eve found tension, a marble surface that repelled her.

For Villanelle it was instinctive; to shield her heart and let her body lead. Her touch was firm, disguising her uncertainty. She thought simply laying eyes on Eve again would silence the doubt, the voice that said she’d made the wrong choice, that though she couldn’t leave Eve, Eve could leave her.

She fell back into her old ways. She needed Eve to show her she felt the same, to submit to her before Villanelle could lay down her guard.

Eve’s hand slid under the fabric of Villanelle’s shirt, tracing her back, reading her body. Which only tightened. Eve leant back and gazed into Villanelle’s retreating eyes, her brow crinkling.

Villanelle felt Eve trying to diagnose her. A muscle jumped and locked beneath a roaming finger. Villanelle wanted to kiss her again just to keep from being seen. A finger on her lips kept in place and under scrutiny.

Villanelle had given Eve what she needed. Commitment. Assurance. A love that wasn’t corrupted by possessiveness. This wasn’t the woman Eve had turned away from in Rome. Every choice Villanelle had made proved that. They had stopped trying to change each other and still they’d ended up in each other’s arms.

But, she realised, Villanelle was still waiting for what she needed, what she had been denied that day. The empty pressure of Villanelle’s lips had tried to pry that admission from Eve’s body in a way she could understand it.

_Oh._

Eve finally understood.

She smiled, collecting Villanelle’s face in her hands.

Villanelle’s frown deepened.

‘I do,’ Eve said. ‘I love you.’

Eve watched her words sink in. Villanelle’s eyes widened; her pupils flexed.

The first thing Villanelle did was take a breath. With it, she let go, as the weight of abandonment and rejection fell from her, she struggled to recall what it was. It was thoroughly forgotten, non-existent, as Eve kissed a tear from her cheek. Villanelle hadn’t realised she was crying.

It fascinated her, she caught one with her tongue. She knew she wasn’t sad. Yet they poured more freely than on those rare occasions where sadness overwhelmed her. These tasted different, these happy tears, they were a sprinkle of rain on a sunny day. They bought a cleansing, a drink for the starved roots ready to grow.

There was a new quality to their kiss when their lips met again, that went beyond the salinity of Villanelle’s tears. The desperation, the fight was gone from her lips, now they moulded with Eve’s, dancing together.

Villanelle didn’t rush their exchange, she allowed herself to enjoy the novelty of being held by Eve. She opened herself to the love in Eve’s touch.

Eve continued tracing the muscles of Villanelle’s back as they kissed. She felt Villanelle relaxing into her, uncoiling with each breath. In her exploration, Eve encountered a nub of hardened flesh, a scar that disturbed the smooth canvas of Villanelle’s back. Eve pocketed the curiosity for later.

Eve could have sworn a sigh leaked from between Villanelle’s lips. It lit a fire in her belly to hear the affect she had on Villanelle. Eve’s other hand sailed down Villanelle’s front until it reached the lip of her pants.

‘Please,’ Eve murmured – breathless, senseless. If their faces weren’t so close, Villanelle would have never heard her. Her fingers spun the button of Villanelle’s pants in question.

Warmth flooded Villanelle, along with a bubble of panic. No one touched Villanelle like that, not until she’d touched them and glimpsed the weakness in their eyes as they came undone by her hand.

Anna had never touched her like that.

Villanelle reminded herself this was different. Eve was different. Villanelle had surrendered herself to Eve in more intimate ways than this. It both terrified and thrilled her. She wanted Eve to touch every prism of her existence. She wanted to _feel_ the love she saw bubbling in Eve’s eyes.

Villanelle undid the button of her high-waisted black jeans for her.

Eve’s flattened hand slipped into the vice of tight fabric, into the delicate lace of Villanelle’s underwear but no deeper.

They both inhaled.

Eve’s palm was flat against Villanelle’s pubic hair. The tips of her fingers rest at the hooded base of Villanelle’s clit.

In the moment of stillness, Eve traced a random pattern onto softened surface of Villanelle’s back as they breathed. To Villanelle it felt like a goofy love heart.

Then Eve wiggled her hand in deeper until she encountered a damp heat.

She felt Villanelle’s back tighten.

‘Relax,’ Eve encouraged.

Villanelle realised her hands were bundled in Eve’s shirt. She let go and took a narrow breath out as Eve found a comfortable position for her hand and circled her.

They were fully clothed, but Villanelle felt naked. She couldn’t control her response to Eve, even the soft stimulation left her panting.

Eve’s gentle touch was maddening, torturous. Villanelle dragged their bodies closer, adding pressure to Eve’s touch and bucking her hips.

Eve got the picture. She helped Villanelle pull her pants down below the curve of her ass. They didn’t waste time shedding her underwear, Eve’s hand re-entered now unrestrained, and dragged two fingers through Villanelle’s wet folds before pressing them inside of her. Her palm ground against Villanelle’s clit with each slow, purposeful thrust of her fingers.

Villanelle’s world narrowed to Eve, her touch, her ragged breathing. Villanelle was compromised. Her mouth had fallen open and she breathed into Eve’s kisses, unable to return them, too lost in all the other sensations.

Her posture had softened, her form collapsed into Eve, who felt the separation of Villanelle’s ribs beneath her hand with each expansive moan.

Eve’s own arousal was becoming unbearable, throbbing between her legs, between their bodies. Being able to _affect_ Villanelle drove her wild.

Eve unlocked her leg from Villanelle’s waist to tap the inside of her leg. ‘Wider,’ Eve whispered.

Villanelle shimmed her feet apart, not breaking one point of contact between them and was rewarded when Eve added another finger.

A groan escaped Villanelle’s lips, her head fell to Eve’s neck as she clung to her, trying to keep her feet beneath her. Eve felt Villanelle tightening, strangling the garth of her fingers.

The sigh that signalled the arrival of Villanelle’s orgasm was like a rapture. An omen and prophecy in one. A sound to end worlds. A sound to start new ones.

They were on the cusp of something, standing in the ruins of their old selves, their false selves. As Villanelle fell over the edge. They were light breaking across a virgin sky. A new beginning.

It left Villanelle trembling. Eve’s breath poured hard and hot in her ear, her fingers still inside of her, palm rocking slowly into her, making sure she’d coaxed Villanelle completely to the other side and into their new world. The elastic of Villanelle’s underwear cracked against her skin when Eve slipped out.

Eve held her glistening fingers up to the light, admiring them, then pointedly she took her index and middle fingers into her mouth to taste Villanelle, to taste her accomplishment

Villanelle’s insides clenched again watching Eve. Then – reverent, pray-like, she blurted out, ‘I love you.’

Eve’s eyes were heavy, nearly black as she offered Villanelle the remaining slick finger. Villanelle took the ring finger into her mouth, circling it until she reached the base. Her lips formed a seal and she bit down. Eve let out a gasp of surprise but let Villanelle leave her mark. 

Villanelle smirked as she admired the marks of her teeth looping Eve’s finger.

‘Better?’ Eve prompted before kissing Villanelle.

She hummed into Eve’s lips, stepping out of her pants before picking Eve up.

‘What are you doing?’ Eve giggled holding onto Villanelle’s neck.

‘It’s your turn,’ Villanelle said, pushing the door to their room open and playfully launching Eve onto the bed.

The springs squealed.

Villanelle stretched and wrestled to pull all her layers off all at once. Her head got caught in the gathered fabric. As Eve shuffled to the edge of bed, coming face to face with lacy underwear. They were pretty but Eve slid them down, they were a sheer curtain obscuring a sunset. And Villanelle’s core was the rosy pink of a summer sunset.

Eve couldn’t help herself; she pressed a kiss to the swollen skin.

Eve was still hungry for Villanelle, starving. Eve hugged her closer. She was already addicted to the way Villanelle sounded and the interstellar look in her eyes as she came. The fire in her own belly barely mattered, she wanted Villanelle again.

Villanelle’s head popped free and she quickly shed her bra. Then caught Eve’s chin preventing her from tasting her. She guided Eve’s eye-line up to meet hers. And Eve was greeted by the sight of Villanelle’s naked body and two hard nipples.

‘I said, it’s your turn,’ Villanelle breathed. The blush on her cheeks had crawled down her neck at the sight of Eve hugging her lower half.

Eve helped with removing her clothes. With her chest bare, in nothing but her underwear, Villanelle laid her back on the bed. And took control of Eve’s wrists as she tried to reach for her again. She pinned Eve’s hands above her head, as she prowled over her, tits in her face. Villanelle shifted to sit on Eve’s stomach, her free hand mimicked Eve’s tortuous touch, gliding from nipple to nipple.

‘Are you going to behave?’ Villanelle asked her voice gravely; she flexed her grip on Eve’s hands.

The wet imprint Villanelle made on Eve’s abdomen did not help her focus. With each breath Eve’s belly rose to meet the wetness. Finally, Eve stopped wiggling. It took all her control as Villanelle stilled her hand and pinched a nipple.

Hastily, Eve nodded. ‘Kiss me.’

Villanelle smiled, lowering herself until their lips could met. She gave Eve back control of her hands, and immediately they found their way into her hair.

Villanelle descended Eve’s body, one kiss at a time and soon even her hair was out of reach, without it to anchor herself to her hands settled for twisting in the sheets.

Finger caught in the elastic of her underwear, Villanelle watched Eve’s breath hitch, her hips twitching off the mattress. The anticipation was doing the work for her, Villanelle realised, face to face with the growing damp spot of Eve’s underwear.

Then as Eve could barely keep still the hands stopped, leaving the thin barrier of fabric in place.

Eve felt an indistinct touch to her abdomen. She opened her eyes and looked down the length of herself to see Villanelle, off the bed, kneeling, her top half bending over Eve and kissing the exit wound.

The scar tissue was pink, out of sync with the olive hue of Eve’s skin. It blended in with the colour of Villanelle’s lips as they sealed over it, becoming a part of her. An abstract nonsensical part of Eve’s brain reasoned that it must be. That’s why Eve couldn’t feel it properly. It wasn’t a part of her, it was a piece of Villanelle taking refuge in her.

Villanelle pulled back. Her lips left a wet mark behind, that Eve couldn’t feel.

Villanelle rest her chin on Eve’s wanting pelvis as she eyed the risen skin, her thumb tracing it.

Normal people would see the wounds they had inflicted on each other and never understand how they ended up here, tangled together, swapping I love yous.

The damage to Eve’s flesh felt trivial compared to the wounds in her heart. In the weeks it had taken her body to heal the physical pain took a back seat to the anguished of believing Villanelle could never love her. That the scaring flesh flagged their fundamental incompatibility. The pain of that rendered everything else as merely an echo.

Eve lay her hand over Villanelle’s, halting her tracing.

When Villanelle met her eyes, Eve’s tone was reassuring, ‘It’s okay.’

With that, Villanelle’s attention returned to Eve’s underwear. They were simple, cotton and entirely unflattering. The kind of underwear that said, “I didn’t think I was going to get eaten out when I got dressed this morning”.

Promptly, Villanelle discarded of them, pulling Eve to the edge of the bed, to her mouth.

Slow and soft wasn’t Villanelle style. From the first stroke of her tongue, Eve knew her intention was to undo her.

Eve hands tugged at the hold she had of the sheets and the corners closest to her unhooked from underneath the mattress. She could feel Villanelle watching her, drinking in every flutter of her eyes, every arch of her back and twitch of her hips.

When Eve could collect herself enough to stare back at Villanelle, she found those once inaccessible eyes gazing back, now wide open and consumed by their love for her. They captivated Eve as much as they had the day they first met, holding her as their subject. Locking eyes with Villanelle was like dumping kerosene on the wildfire alight inside of Eve.

Villanelle kept a palm against Eve’s stomach. She wanted to feel how every motion affected her, what made her muscles clench, her insides ripple, climbing with Eve to her peak.

Then Eve’s toes curled, and her head threw back. She gasped as her orgasm crashed into her, burying her, she was somewhere else as her body shuddered.

Villanelle lost sight of Eve’s face and she couldn’t bare it, she climbed back up Eve’s body, her hand taking the task from her mouth.

Eve opened her eyes to find Villanelle over her as her hand kept a gentle pace. Greedily, Eve pulled their lips together, her tongue reached inside, tasting herself.

Panting as their lips parted, Eve managed, ‘That wasn’t selfish.’

Eve shifted to bring her thigh between Villanelle’s legs, to give her something to move against. Her hands found Villanelle’s hips helping them find a friction and rhythm against her skin.

Villanelle wasn’t done. Her eyes darkened. Her hand was still between Eve’s legs, keeping them open, massaging the swollen lips, until the sensitivity faded, and Eve ached to be touched again.

Villanelle’s nose dipped into Eve’s neck; the cold tip touched her pulse point.

As Eve shivered, two long fingers slid inside of her without resistance. Villanelle whispered, ‘I’m yours.’

‘Say it again,’ Eve mumbled.

Villanelle’s voice was soft, breathless as she repeated it.

It sparked something dark in Eve’s eyes. A part of her revelled in the admission, as Villanelle slicked the skin of her thigh, as Villanelle’s finger filled her. Eve caught Villanelle’s hips and quickened her pace.

Eve held her close. Their pleasure spilling from their lips, claiming the small space between them. And into it, Eve echoed, ‘I’m yours.’

Disbelief. Desire. Love and lust all fought for dominance in the look in Villanelle’s eyes. Her insides fluttered, clenching. Villanelle’s fingers stalled inside of Eve as she was brash and greedy as she rode Eve’s thigh. 

Villanelle’s climax came quick, faster than she expected. It leaked out with a moan. Eve’s words had undone her. She rose a little out of Eve’s embrace then sunk back into her, tiredness quickly taking the place of ecstasy. It threatened to overcome but Villanelle gathered herself, curling her fingers to coax Eve to the edge as well.

But it was Villanelle’s moan that got Eve there. The way it had slipped from her lips, signalling a pleasure so complete it compelled a response. An outward sign of her inward upheaval.

It was unclear who was holding who in the end. They collapsed into one another. Their flesh binding them together with sweat.

They were exhausted. Empty in a pleasing way, all their hoarded emotion had been expelled, all the long-caged words said.

****

Afterwards they took their time exploring one another’s body.

Eve let her curiosity get the better of her, she asked about the scars on Villanelle’s flesh, demanding their stories. They didn’t stumble across a fond memory, a childhood accident. They were all bound to stories of death and survival, sustained at the behest of the Twelve.

The kinds of scars Eve bore – beside the grizzly ones Villanelle had given her – were clumsy accidents attached to anecdotes.

It made Eve angry. Whatever the Twelve had paid Villanelle it couldn’t have been enough to justify the scars she bore. Just as no price could justify tearing the Mona Lisa or disfiguring Michelangelo’s statue of David.

When Villanelle was on stomach, Eve found the scar she’d felt earlier, long, and thin, it sat between two ribs. It was an iceberg, a marker for the hidden depth of scar tissue beneath the surface.

Eve poked it. ‘That wasn’t me.’

Villanelle laughed. It rumbled in her chest. ‘Very astute. ‘

‘Who stabbed you in the back?’

‘Dasha. She trained me.’

Eve frowned; she couldn’t see Villanelle’s face, but her tone had shifted. ‘I thought Konstantin trained you.’

‘They both did.’ Eve tried to imagine this woman working beside Konstantin, training Villanelle, like her Twelve appointed parents. Then Villanelle continued, ‘She tried to kill me. She said I wasn’t ready. She was jealous. Old.’ Villanelle fell silent, that was all she offered about Dasha. Where the story of this scar ended.

Eve didn’t push it, she motioned for Villanelle to roll on to her back so she could continue. When Eve made her way to the mark she’d made, she felt guilty. Her finger hovered over it, afraid to prompt Villanelle.

Villanelle’s fingers found Eve’s hair. ‘A very sexy woman gave me that one.’

Eve smirked. ‘Did she now?’

‘And smart.’ She sighed, leaning back against the one pillow that hadn’t been expelled from the bed. ‘You’re right. If we want to be free, the Twelve have to be dealt with.’

Eve settled on Villanelle’s chest and looked up at her. ‘Nina hates me, doesn’t she?’

Villanelle shook her head. ‘She told me to stay if I loved you.’

‘Really?’ Eve couldn’t keep the shock from her face. Nina had been so unreadable.

‘Really. But I did promise I would be quick.’

‘How quick?’ Eve asked, her tone sceptical.

‘Six months,’ Villanelle lilted.

‘Hmm.’ Eve considered that timeline. If they hadn’t scratched the surface in six months, they probably never would. And there was another part of Eve that leapt at the challenge. ‘I thrive with a deadline.’

They fell silent again. It was comfortable but there was still one thing playing Eve had to say, ‘I thought you would resent me if I asked you to stay.’

‘If we die doing this I might,’ Villanelle said, her fingers combing Eve’s hair.

Eve’s face plummeted. Villanelle jabbed her side, to show she was joking. ‘I wasn’t sure you loved me. I got things pretty wrong in Rome.’

They both had, but things were different now.

Villanelle’s voice perked up. ‘Are you going to tell me your secret plan to destroy the Twelve now that I’m on board?’

‘I don’t have one.’

‘Okay…’ Villanelle sighed. She knew Eve was stubborn, but Villanelle hoped that it was justified by some progress. ‘Tell me then, what you know about them. Loose ends. Weak points. And we’ll go from there.’

So, Eve did. It was kind of therapeutic, to recount her side of things to Villanelle. She didn’t have to censor anything, and unfiltered it all poured from her lips. Perhaps in too much detail. But Villanelle listened intently, letting Eve’s words fill in their time apart.

Villanelle only interjected when Eve got to safe, she found at Raymond’s place.

Her eyes lit up. ‘What was in it?’

Eve shrugged. ‘I never got to look inside.’

Villanelle sat up, dragging Eve up with her. ‘Let’s start there. If the Twelve didn’t know about it that’s probably because he had his own agenda. Plus, he never shut up about how important he was. He might have even been a Keeper.’

‘A Keeper?’ Eve prompted.

‘They know the names of the Twelve.’

Villanelle excitement at the idea was palpable, confident. Perhaps she had some code cracking past Eve was yet to learn about.

‘We have to trust each other. This isn’t going to work if we can’t do that,’ Eve said, her words were an attempt to ground them.

Villanelle didn’t hesitate. ‘I trust you.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is like the first long sex scene I’ve ever written so hopefully it lived up to expectations. I wanted to make it fairly soft and loving. You can thank Erin for me having a reason to write Eve as decent at sex.  
> This is kind of where my original idea for this story ended. But I don’t think I’m ready to let go of this little world yet and want to explore how these two would go about fighting the twelve. And who the twelve are. With s4 filming postponed I might as well keep going and see how far we get before s4.  
> So, I’ll be taking a few weeks to do planning but then I’ll drop the last chapter of this and the first chapter of part 2 at the same time.  
> A special thank you to my beta. Cause she’s just awesome and encouraging.  
> As always thanks for commenting and reading and everything else, it honestly means a lot.


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